As the U.S Congress reconvenes after the Labor Day Holiday, the courage and sacrifice of the nation's whistleblowers deserve recognition, especially because the breakdown of normal civil rights protections endangers the national interest.

One way to assess this process was to review here highlights of the 13th Annual Whistleblowers Summit and Film Festival, which this year was held in its traditional venue of Washington, DC as well as in several locations in Arkansas. Substantial amounts of the programming are being made available also online.

The contributions of two award-winners are especially noteworthy because their courageous actions continue to reveal serious shortcomings in the nation's national security and democratic institutions, including the U.S. Departments of Defense, State and Justice.

This column explores the work and implications of these awardees, who were honored at a ceremony and dinner organized by the Summit leadership at the National Press Club in Washington, DC:  

• Lev Parnas, right, is host of the high-rated "Lev Remembers" podcast. Parnas was a onetime confidante of and fixer for President Trump and the president's counsel, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Later, he authored a powerful column about the Summit, excerpted below,  Yesterday Changed Me Forever: From Brooklyn to the National Press Club—A Whistleblower’s Journey and a Father’s Pride; and

• Wayne Madsen, left,  is the editor of the Wayne Madsen Report. Author of 24 books, he is a onetime commentator on virtually all major U.S TV network and cable news networks and a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer.

The Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival was primarily from July 30 to Aug. 1, 2025, with hybrid events from July 25 to Aug. 3. Its purpose was to celebrate those who speak truth to power and help build a more transparent, accountable world.

As noted, winners of "Pillar" awards signifying pillars of civic life were: 

Lev Parnas, host of the high-rated Lev Remembers podcast and co-author (with Jerry Langton) of the memoir, Shadow Diplomacy: Lev Parnas’ Wild Ride From Brooklyn to Donald Trump’s Inner Circle, adapted to a documentary last fall produced by Rachel Maddow. Parnas describes how he erred in becoming close associate of President Trump’s counsel Rudy Giuliani, and others in the president’s inner circle (as well as with President Trump himself) in efforts to obtain evidence to be used against Democrats to hurt them and Ukraine politically. These days, Parnas speaks out forcefully against what he regards as dangerous threats to the U.S. justice system and other democratic safeguards.

Wayne Madsen, below,  editor of the Wayne Madsen Report, author of 24 books, a commentator on virtually all major U.S. TV network and cable news networks, plus the BBC and other prominent global networks. The former Navy intelligence officer, author of op-eds appearing in more than 150 U.S. newspapers, has been a Press Club member for 25 years. He discussed his books, which include three about the Trump family, including The Rise of the Fascist Fourth Reich: The Era of Trumpism and the New Far-Right, and other reports about current threats to democracy and American institutions.   

Those awardees were particularly important because of ongoing toll of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the damage to Western alliances and elective democracy via related disruptions, and the stresses to the U.S. justice system heightened by Trump Administration violation of immigration laws.

The Parnas column cited above is excerpted here, with his brief bio:

 

Lev Parnas, above, being interviewed by cable television host Rachel Maddow on Jan. 15, 2020 for a documentary she produced about his life.

Lev Remembers, Yesterday Changed Me Forever: From Brooklyn to the National Press Club—A Whistleblower’s Journey and a Father’s Pride, Lev Parnas, Aug. 1, 2025. Yesterday was one of those rare days that I’ll never forget.

The kind of day that reaches deep into your soul and reminds you of why you’re still standing. The kind of day that humbles you—because it isn’t just about what you’ve been through, it’s about who you’ve become because of it.

I was in Washington, D.C., standing inside the hallowed halls of the National Press Club—the beating heart of free speech in this country—where I was presented with the 13th Annual Whistleblower Pillar Award.

Now, I know how strange that may sound. Me, a kid from Brooklyn, standing in front of a room full of journalists, federal officials, and freedom fighters, being honored as a whistleblower. It still doesn’t fully register. Because where I come from, being a whistleblower wasn’t seen as courageous. It was seen as betrayal. As weakness. As turning your back.

But I’ve lived long enough to learn that’s one of the biggest lies ever told.

The truth is, whistleblowers are some of the most courageous and selfless individuals in American history. They’re not traitors—they’re truth tellers. They’re the ones who risk it all to stop the machine. And in that room yesterday, I was reminded that when you speak truth to power, even if it costs you everything, you stand taller in the end. Because you stood for something bigger than yourself.

Walking through the Press Club before the ceremony, I found myself slowly absorbing the history embedded in its walls. Photos of reporters who changed the world. Articles that exposed corruption. Headlines that saved lives. It’s a place that’s seen the best and the worst of our democracy—wars, cover-ups, scandal, triumph. But something was different this time.

It wasn’t just the memory of the old press that filled those rooms—it was the presence of a new one. And I saw it clearly in my son, Aaron Parnas, right.

When I looked out and saw him sitting there as I received my award, something happened in me. Yes, I was proud to be honored. But more than anything, I was proud to be his father.

Aaron is one of the most committed and fearless independent journalists of his generation. At a time when democracy is on life support—when lies are trending and truth is buried—he chose the hard path. He chose to fight. To dig. To publish. To tell it straight, without fear, without apology.

And yesterday, in that room, it felt like the baton was being passed—not in ceremony, but in spirit.

The National Press Club once echoed with the voices of newspaper giants. Today, it echoes with the courage of independent journalists like Aaron. The ones who don’t have corporate machines behind them. Who aren’t protected by PR firms or billionaire donors. Just a laptop, a Wi-Fi connection, and a promise to tell the truth no matter what.

It was surreal to witness. The walls once filled with Pulitzer-winning editors now watched as a new generation stepped in. The old guard may have built the foundation, but it’s the independent press that’s carrying the torch now. And I couldn’t be more proud that my son is at the front of that line.

But I also need to say this, and say it clearly: that award wasn’t just for me.

I accepted it on behalf of every single one of you. My readers. My supporters. My subscribers. My community. You’ve been with me through the fire. You’ve supported me when the doors were slammed shut. You’ve kept my voice alive when Trump and his cronies tried to bury it.

This award belongs to us. To this movement. To this fight.

Because make no mistake: we are living through one of the most dangerous times in American history. Donald Trump and his allies are not just campaigning—they are executing a slow, strategic, deliberate assault on our democracy. They are silencing whistleblowers. Shuttering the truth. Weaponizing fear. They want to rewrite history while intimidating anyone who dares to challenge their lies.

And that’s exactly why what we’re doing here matters.

This is a resistance.

Yesterday reminded me why I keep going. Why I write. Why I speak. Why I fight. Because we can’t afford to lose. Because I don’t want my children—or yours—to grow up in a country where telling the truth is considered a crime. Because history doesn’t change unless we force it to.

I also had some promising meetings in D.C.—real conversations with people ready to act. And I’ll be sharing those details soon. But this next chapter? I can’t do it alone.

If you haven’t yet subscribed, now is the time. Become a paid subscriber today. It makes all the difference. Share this message. Re-stack it. Tell your friends. Because what’s coming will require all of us.

And if you believe in this work, please consider contributing directly at Venmo: @lev-parnas.

Also, if you haven’t yet, go to LevRemembers.com and pick up your copy of Shadow Diplomacy. That book lays out everything they tried to hide. The backchannels. The real deals. The playbook of how Trump operates behind the scenes—and how it all connects to what’s unfolding today.

This movement is not funded by corporations or political parties. It’s fueled by truth, and powered by you.

They may mock us. They may try to silence us. But we will not forget. We will not look away. And with your help, we will not be ignored.

Now more than ever, I need you to be my megaphone. Share this message far and wide. Subscribe. Contribute. Spread the word. Because what we’re fighting for is bigger than me. It’s bigger than you. It’s our democracy. It’s our future.

With gratitude, truth, and fire. 

 

Lev Parnas, right, is an entrepreneur, political activist, and author. Born in Odessa, Ukraine under the Soviet Union, he emigrated with his family to the United States in 1976 to escape antisemitic persecution. When Lev and his sister won a green card lottery, the family went first to Detroit and then settled in Brooklyn. Though Lev studied briefly at Brooklyn College and Baruch College, life led him to more unconventional routes. He worked in real estate and on Wall Street before moving to Florida in 1995 to start his own brokerage firm.

In Fall 2019, Lev became an internationally-recognized figure when he was arrested for participating in the Ukraine scandal orchestrated by Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. A father of seven, Lev currently lives in Florida with his wife Svetlana, shown with him above, and five of his children. Lev testified in front of Congress on March 20th, 2024 as a witness for the Democratic Oversight Committee in the Impeachment of Joe Biden. Lev is an author of the book "Shadow Diplomacy" about his time in as a Trump insider.

Among other award-winners was: 

Dr. Robert Kroutil, a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contractor who came to Government Accountability Project in the wake of the 2023 Norfolk Southern trail derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Dr. Kroutil is a nationally recognized expert in the field of passive infrared chemical detection, helping to develop EPA’s Airborne Spectral Photometric Environmental Collection Technology (ASPECT) airplane to detect harmful chemicals in the 1980s.

Following the 2023 Norfolk Southern train derailment, the ASPECT plane was set to deploy, but Dr. Kroutil discovered inconsistencies in the emergency response that prevented ASPECT from protecting the public. EPA chose not to fly the plane until four days after the derailment, turned off sensors over the town’s creeks, and then falsified records to cover up the mission breakdown. Dr. Kroutil bravely reported these problems but was retaliated against and forced into retirement.

Helping start the speaking program at the U.S. House Rayburn Building was John Barbour, age 92, a high school dropout in Canada who later won five Emmys in Los Angeles for news reporting and then creating, producing and co-hosting the hit show “Real People,” with a file photo from the show at right.

In 1992, he produced “The Garrison Tapes” documentary New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s investigation of a 1963 assassination plot to kill President John F. Kennedy. Barbour followed up with “American Media & The Second Assassination of John F. Kennedy” in 2017. It challenges the mainstream media for failing to report fairly on Garrison’s investigation and the Warren Commission.

Barbour, born in 1933 and essentially abandoned by his parents, snuck into the United States at age 17 and became of successful comic. He became LA's most popular talk show host beginning in 1970 KABC in Los Angeles, winning his first Emmys, and starting a path that would make him the performer to win for both News & Entertainment.

He made his name interviewing controversial anti-war guests like Mohammed Ali, Jane Fonda, and Cesar Chavez -- and was then fired for booking Garrison to talk about JFK's assassination.

He became a film critic at KNBC and LA Magazine, and was Frank Sinatra's private writer for four years. In 1979, he helped launch the hit show “Real People,” earning him accolades later as "The Godfather Of Reality TV." He has authored numerous books, including his rags to riches memoir, “Your Mother's Not A Virgin!”

Also, Jerry Ashton, Navy veteran and former military journalist, receives recognition for his extraordinary post-service mission. As co-founder of Undue Medical Debt (2014), he raised national awareness about the cost of unpayable healthcare while also helping to forgive over $20 billion in medical debt for more than 10 million Americans. His latest charity venture, End Veteran Debt, extends this life-changing work by eliminating debt for military members who have left service.

The event this year was split into two overlapping segments.

One, based as usual in Washington, DC, was led by Summit Co-Founder Marcel Reid, shown at right, with assistance by the Justice Integrity Project. The main conference featured whistleblowers sharing their stories at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill July 29. Those featured on that program included panels lead by Government Accountability Project (GAP) Director Tom Devine that provided a guide to effective advocacy to engage elected representatives. 

The other locale, under the leadership of Summit Co-Founder Michael McCray, was at venues in Arkansas that included the Clinton Presidential Library Center, the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, and the Martha Mitchell House & Museum, with extended hybrid programming featuring documentary films running from July 25 to Aug. 3. McCray is also shown at right and is co-author with Reid of a book on their whistleblowing about ACORN, a once-prominent national community organizing group. 

Highlights of the programming, including the films, are available via the Summit and Festival website here. 

 

Contact the author This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Updates 

2026

Lev Remembers, Analysis and Opinion, Exposed: Follow the Oil. Follow the Money, Lev Parnas, right, Sept 23, 2026. Trump is blaming Ukraine for rising energy prices. But my sources say the bigger story is where oil, financial markets, presidential signals — and enormous amounts of money — intersect.

Oil. Gas. Diesel. Most Americans don’t wake up thinking about global energy markets.

They think about something much simpler: How much is this going to cost me?

How much to fill the car? How much more for groceries? How much for an airline ticket? How much does a small business have to raise its prices just to survive?

Because when energy prices move, almost everything moves with them.

And right now, Donald Trump is publicly putting pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stop attacking Russian energy infrastructure. Ukraine has hit Russian refineries hard. Those attacks have damaged Russian refining capacity and affected fuel production. That part is real.

But it isn’t the whole story. Not even close.

What’s happening in global energy markets is much bigger than Ukrainian drones hitting Russian refineries.

It involves disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz. It involves the wider Middle East conflict, global refining capacity, sanctions, Russia, Venezuela, China and decisions being made right here in Washington.

So when an enormously complicated global energy crisis gets reduced to one simple explanation — Ukraine is hitting Russian refineries, and that’s why Americans are paying more. I don’t think so.

Because there is another part of this story that deserves much more attention: Who benefits?

When energy prices explode, the losers are easy to find. They’re us.

It’s the American family watching the numbers spin at the gas pump. The trucker filling two enormous diesel tanks. The independent trucking company trying to stay profitable. The farmer running diesel machinery. The construction company operating heavy equipment. The small business paying higher shipping costs. The family trying to afford an airline ticket.

And eventually, it’s the person walking through the grocery store wondering why everything suddenly costs more.

Higher energy prices don’t stay at the gas station. They move through transportation, food, manufacturing, construction, travel and shipping. Eventually, somebody pays. Usually, it’s you.

But enormous movements in energy prices create winners too. Oil producers can benefit. Energy companies can benefit. Commodity traders can benefit from volatility. Energy-exporting countries can benefit when higher prices compensate for reduced volumes. And people positioned correctly before major market moves can make extraordinary amounts of money.

That’s why this story isn’t simply about the number posted outside your neighborhood gas station.

Follow the oil.

And then:

Follow the money.

My sources tell me that people connected to major energy and financial interests around Trump world are paying extremely close attention to where these markets are moving. For an American family, volatility means uncertainty and higher bills. For somebody positioned correctly in oil, gas, equities or commodities, volatility can mean opportunity. Sometimes enormous opportunity. And this is where Venezuela becomes important.

At the same time Americans are being told Ukraine needs to stop attacking Russian energy infrastructure because of fuel prices, Washington is encouraging investment in Venezuela — a country sitting on the world’s largest proven oil reserves. And now we have names. Harold Hamm, the billionaire founder of Continental Resources, is a longtime Trump ally, major financial backer and informal energy adviser. Reuters reports that Hamm gave more than $2 million to Trump-aligned committees during the 2024 election cycle and helped raise money for Trump from oil and gas executives.

Now Continental Resources has signed a preliminary agreement with Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA involving the massive Ayacucho 2 area in the Orinoco Belt — an area estimated to contain roughly 30 billion barrels of oil in place. Continental says it intends to retain a 100% working interest as it evaluates development. Hamm publicly called it a “great opportunity.”

Then there are Vitol and Trafigura. Reuters reports that these two global trading houses have become among the biggest winners in the race for Venezuelan crude and together are now moving nearly 600,000 barrels a day — more than half of Venezuela’s oil exports.

Those aren’t theories. Those are actual companies, actual oil and actual commercial opportunities. Don’t just follow the physical oil. Follow the financial markets. Because there are really two markets operating at the same time.

There is the physical market — barrels, diesel, refineries, tankers, pipelines and production. Then there is the financial market — futures, options, stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities. And that second market runs on information.

My source specifically pointed me toward the importance of the people at the highest levels of Trump’s economic team, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and the enormous importance markets place on signals coming from Washington.

Bessent spent decades in global investment management before becoming Treasury Secretary. Lutnick came from Wall Street and led Cantor Fitzgerald before entering government. These are people who understand markets.

But there is something else the public record shows that deserves attention. Trump himself has an enormous investment portfolio experiencing extraordinary levels of trading activity while he is President.

Financial disclosures covering just the first three months of 2026 reveal thousands of transactions involving securities tied to major American companies. Reuters calculated at least $220 million in transactions, while the disclosure ranges put the possible cumulative transaction value as high as roughly $750 million.

The activity included securities connected to Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Broadcom, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. Purchases included investments tied to Nvidia, Apple and an S&P 500 index fund, while large disclosed sales included securities connected to Microsoft, Amazon and Meta.

But that isn’t the end of the financial-market story. Because Reuters conducted a separate examination of trading immediately before major Trump policy announcements. And what it found deserves attention. Reuters identified at least four instances in which unusually well-timed bets preceded major Trump administration decisions involving tariffs, Venezuela and Iran. In one case, unidentified traders placed roughly $500 million in oil-market bets just minutes before Trump announced that he was delaying an assault on Iranian energy assets — an announcement that sent crude prices plunging.

Minutes.

Half a billion dollars. Then the President speaks. Then the market moves. Reuters did not establish who made those trades or that anyone possessed inside information. Some experts told Reuters the trades could have reflected luck, sophisticated analysis or hedging.

But other former regulators and market experts told Reuters that the timing and size warranted scrutiny.

That’s the distinction that matters. We have one set of disclosures showing thousands of transactions involving Trump’s investment holdings. Separately, we have unidentified traders making remarkably well-timed bets immediately before market-moving government announcements.

Timing.

• A presidential statement can move billions.
• A sanctions announcement can move billions.
• A decision involving Venezuela can move billions.
• A change involving Russian energy can move billions.
• And sophisticated traders don’t simply trade what happened yesterday.
• They trade expectations.
• They trade information.
• They trade uncertainty.
• They trade volatility.
• That’s where the physical energy market and the financial markets come together.
• One deals in barrels.
• The other deals in information.
• And information can sometimes be worth more than the oil itself.

Meanwhile, enormous positions are moving through financial markets around presidential announcements capable of changing the price of oil almost instantaneously. These are different transactions involving different people and companies. The public evidence does not establish that they are part of one coordinated scheme. But taken together, they demonstrate why energy policy and financial markets cannot be examined in isolation.

Policy moves markets. Markets move money. And access to information — particularly information about what the United States government is going to do next — can be extraordinarily valuable. Meanwhile, the person with the least ability to influence any of it is the person who ultimately gets the bill.

You.

You don’t control global oil production. You don’t control Russian refineries. You don’t control the Strait of Hormuz. You don’t control sanctions or commodity markets. You don’t sit in the rooms where these decisions are made. You pull into the gas station.

And you pay. That’s why I’m staying on this story. Because this isn’t simply about gasoline being expensive. It isn’t simply about Donald Trump pressuring Zelenskyy over Russian refineries. And it isn’t simply about Venezuela.

It’s about understanding how government policy, physical energy markets and financial markets intersect — and where the money goes when they do. That’s what Lev Remembers exists to do.

I’m not here simply to repeat today’s headline or tell you the price of a barrel of oil. I’m here to connect what’s happening publicly with what I’m hearing privately — and with what I learned from years of being around many of these people.

Lev Remembers, Analysis and Opinion, Exposed: The Russian Network Surrounding the Trump Family, Lev Parnas, right, Sept 30, 2026. From Moscow in the 1980s to Putin’s inner circle today, I connected the documented relationships—and this map is only the beginning.

Russian Connections Around the Trump Family Are Bigger Than One Story. Donald Trump. His family. Russian oligarchs, businessmen, diplomats and Kremlin officials. This story started decades before the 2016 election — and it is still unfolding today.

Before we begin, I want to remind you why Lev Remembers exists.

I am not a journalist.

I’m not sitting behind a desk reading yesterday’s headlines and rewriting them for you.

I was there.

I lived inside this world. I participated in meetings. I knew many of the players. I watched introductions turn into relationships, relationships turn into access, and access open doors that most people never even knew existed.

That’s why I look at these stories differently.

And it’s why I keep telling you:

Watch what they do, not what they say.Subscribed

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Because today’s story didn’t start yesterday.

It didn’t start with the Mueller investigation.

It didn’t start with the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

It didn’t even start when Donald Trump announced he was running for president.

To understand what we’re watching today, we have to go much further back.

BEFORE POLITICS

Donald Trump’s interest in Russia goes back decades.

By the 1980s, Trump was already a celebrity businessman in New York. He was married to Ivana Trump, who had been born in Czechoslovakia when it was under communist rule.

Then, in 1986, something happened that would become an early chapter in Trump’s long history with Moscow.

At a luncheon in New York, Trump was seated next to Yuri Dubinin, the Soviet Union’s ambassador to the United States.

Trump later wrote about that encounter himself.

The conversation eventually turned to the possibility of doing business in Moscow.

The following year, Donald and Ivana Trump traveled to the Soviet Union.

This wasn’t the Russia of oligarchs, private corporations and luxury developments that would emerge after the Soviet collapse.

This was 1987.

Mikhail Gorbachev was running the Soviet Union.

Vladimir Putin was still a KGB officer.

And major foreign business projects required dealing with the Soviet state.

Trump and Ivana visited Moscow and examined potential locations for a luxury hotel project. Contemporary reporting described discussions involving Intourist, the Soviet state tourism organization. Trump later described being impressed by the Soviet officials’ interest in making a deal.

Nothing ultimately came of that particular project.

But something had begun.

A relationship with Moscow.

An ambition to build there.

Contacts.

Introductions.

And a fascination with doing business in Russia that would reappear again and again over the decades that followed.

Then the Soviet Union collapsed.

Russia changed.

And the people surrounding Donald Trump’s Russian ambitions changed with it.

The Soviet bureaucrats were replaced by businessmen.

Then came oligarchs.

Developers.

Middlemen.

People with access.

People with money.

People connected to people inside the Russian government.

And as Donald Trump’s family became increasingly involved in the Trump Organization, some of those relationships began touching their lives too.

Donald Trump Jr.

Ivanka Trump.

Jared Kushner.

Eric Trump.

Different people.

Different relationships.

Different years.

But some of the same Russian worlds kept appearing.

THEN CAME THE MONEY

Russian buyers began appearing in Trump-branded real estate.

Russian businessmen became involved in proposed Trump developments.

Trump brought the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow.

The Agalarov family entered the picture.

Trump Tower Moscow kept coming back.

Donald Trump Jr. became involved.

Ivanka became involved.

Felix Sater became involved.

And eventually, relationships that had existed in Trump’s business world began appearing in Trump’s political world.

Then came 2016.

Then the Trump Tower meeting.

Then the investigations.

Then the denials.

And America spent years arguing about one question:

What exactly was Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia?

But I believe that question is too narrow.

Because Donald Trump is only one part of this story.

What happens when instead of looking only at Donald Trump, we follow the relationships surrounding his entire family?

What happens when we put Donald Trump Jr.‘s relationships next to Ivanka’s?

Then put Jared Kushner’s next to theirs?

Then add the Russian businessmen.

The oligarchs.

The diplomats.

The state banks.

The investment funds.

The intermediaries.

The business deals.

The social relationships.

The meetings.

And then follow those relationships forward—not just to 2016, but all the way to 2026?

That’s what I’ve been working on.

And what I found is why I’m publishing this today.

Because some of these relationships disappeared years ago.

Others are active right now.

Some involve business.

Some involve friendship.

Some involve money.

Some involve diplomacy.

Some involve presidential politics.

And some of the names you are about to see repeatedly connect different members of the Trump family to different parts of Russia’s business and political establishment.

I’m going to show you what happens when we stop looking at those stories individually.

And put them on the same page.

NOW LET ME SHOW YOU THE MAP

Look at it carefully.

Don’t just look at Donald Trump in the middle.

Look at the people surrounding him.

Look at Donald Trump Jr.

Look at Ivanka.

Look at Jared Kushner.

Look at Eric.

Then look above them.

Aras Agalarov.

Emin Agalarov.

Roman Abramovich.

Dmitry Rybolovlev.

Felix Sater.

Umar Kremlev.

Kirill Dmitriev.

Sergey Gorkov.

Sergey Kislyak.

Then look at the institutions surrounding those people.

Crocus Group.

VEB.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund.

Gazprom.

The International Boxing Association.

Russian diplomatic institutions.

Russian state enterprises.

Now start following the lines.

And remember something extremely important:

This isn’t even the complete map.

There are more names.

More companies.

More intermediaries.

More relationships.

More transactions.

And more connections that I am still documenting.

So consider what you’re looking at version one.

I’m going to continue building this.

But even version one tells us a remarkable story.

And now I want to walk you through it.

START WITH DONALD TRUMP

The first branch begins with Trump himself.

His Russian business ambitions date back to the Soviet era.

But decades later, one of the most important relationships would become Aras Agalarov and Crocus Group.

Trump brought Miss Universe to Moscow in 2013.

The relationship didn’t end when the pageant ended.

The Trump Organization and the Agalarov side subsequently discussed a Trump Tower Moscow project.

And Donald Trump Jr. became the Trump Organization’s principal negotiator on the proposed deal.

So already we have:

Donald Trump → Aras Agalarov → Crocus Group → Trump Tower Moscow

Then there is Dmitry Rybolovlev.

In 2008, the Russian billionaire purchased Trump’s Palm Beach mansion for approximately $95 million after Trump had bought it several years earlier for roughly $41 million.

Then zoom out.

Reuters examined public records and identified at least 63 people with Russian passports or Russian addresses who purchased approximately $98.4 million in property in seven Trump-branded South Florida towers.

Again, I’m not telling you those buyers were all acting for the Kremlin.

I’m showing you the scale of the Russian financial presence surrounding Trump-branded real estate.

And this was all before Donald Trump became president.

FOLLOW THE LINE TO DONALD TRUMP JR.

Now something interesting happens.

The Agalarov relationship crosses from one generation to another.

Don Jr. wasn’t simply Donald Trump’s son standing nearby.

He was directly involved in negotiations over the proposed Moscow development.

Then, in 2016, the same Agalarov network appeared in an entirely different context.

Emin Agalarov’s publicist, Rob Goldstone, contacted Don Jr. offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton that Goldstone described as connected to Russian government support for his father.

Don Jr. agreed to meet.

That became the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

Think about that transition.

Business relationship → continuing personal access → presidential campaign contact.

But Don Jr.‘s Russian story doesn’t end in 2016.

UMAR KREMLEV

Fast-forward ten years.

In 2026, Russian businessman Umar Kremlev helped fund celebrations surrounding Donald Trump Jr.’s Bahamas wedding.

Don Jr.’s representative has described Kremlev as a personal friend and said the two do not have a business relationship.

Kremlev heads the International Boxing Association, an organization that has had significant financial ties to Russian state-controlled Gazprom.

So another branch appears:

Donald Trump Jr. → Umar Kremlev → IBA → Russian state-business sphere

Different decade.

Different relationship.

Same family.

NOW FOLLOW IVANKA

Ivanka takes us into another Russian circle.

She developed a longstanding friendship with Dasha Zhukova, who was married for years to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

Ivanka and Jared traveled to Moscow.

They moved socially in circles that included Abramovich and Zhukova.

Ivanka also toured the proposed Trump Tower Moscow site during the period when the Agalarov project was under consideration.

And the Mueller report records another important connection: Felix Sater had previously accompanied Ivanka and Don Jr. to Moscow while he was working with the Trump Organization on international projects. (Department of Justice⁠)

So Ivanka’s branch gives us multiple paths:

Ivanka → Zhukova → Abramovich

Ivanka → Agalarov network → Moscow development

Ivanka → Felix Sater → Trump Organization’s Moscow ambitions

Different kinds of relationships.

But again, the networks overlap.

THEN JARED KUSHNER

Jared’s branch moves much closer to the Russian state itself.

During the 2016 presidential transition, Kushner met Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

He subsequently met Sergey Gorkov, who headed Russia’s state development bank VEB.

So now another line appears:

Jared Kushner → Kislyak → Russian diplomatic establishment

and:

Jared Kushner → Gorkov → VEB → Russian state financial system

But Jared’s story doesn’t stop with the first Trump administration.

KIRILL DMITRIEV

This is one of the names I want you to remember.

Kirill Dmitriev.

Dmitriev heads the Russian Direct Investment Fund and serves as a presidential envoy for Vladimir Putin.

And unlike some of the people on this map, Dmitriev isn’t simply part of the historical Trump-Russia story.

He is part of what’s happening right now.

Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have been involved in current diplomacy with Moscow in which Dmitriev has played a prominent role.

So now look at this line:

Putin → Dmitriev → Kushner/Witkoff → Trump administration

That’s why I keep telling you not to leave this story in 2016.

Some of the names changed.

Some of the relationships changed.

But Russia didn’t disappear.

AND THEN THERE’S FELIX SATER

Sater deserves his own place on this map because his story intersects with several Trump family members.

He worked with the Trump Organization through Bayrock.

He was involved in Trump SoHo.

He explored Moscow projects.

He accompanied Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka to Moscow.

And years later, he again became involved in efforts to pursue Trump Tower Moscow during the 2016 campaign.

So when you see Felix Sater on this map, don’t think of him as a random Russian-born businessman who appears once.

Think about the number of different Trump-world relationships his story touches.

That’s what makes the map important.

NOW STEP BACK

Look at it again.

Donald Trump.

Don Jr.

Ivanka.

Jared.

Eric.

Agalarov.

Abramovich.

Rybolovlev.

Sater.

Kremlev.

Dmitriev.

Kislyak.

Gorkov.

Crocus.

VEB.

RDIF.

Gazprom.

Trump properties.

Moscow projects.

Political meetings.

Diplomatic contacts.

Social relationships.

Money.

Different people.

Different decades.

Different kinds of relationships.

But repeatedly intersecting with the same family.

I KNOW HOW THESE NETWORKS WORK

This is where my own experience matters.

I’ve watched influence networks develop from inside.

They rarely begin with someone walking into a room and announcing:

“I’m here representing Vladimir Putin.”

That’s not how this world works.

It starts with relationships.

A businessman introduces another businessman.

Someone invites somebody to dinner.

Someone opens a door.

Someone presents an opportunity.

Someone makes an introduction.

Someone picks up a bill.

Someone gets access.

Trust develops.

And eventually people who appeared to have nothing to do with one another can find themselves connected through overlapping relationships.

I’ve seen that process.

I’ve participated in that world.

That’s why I pay attention to relationships other people dismiss as coincidences.

AND I’M NOT FINISHED

I want to emphasize this again.

This chart is not the finished product.

It’s the beginning.

There are connections that aren’t on it yet.

There are people I haven’t added.

There are companies and financial relationships that deserve their own branches.

There are older relationships that need to be revisited in light of what is happening today.

And there are current relationships that I am continuing to follow.

As I document them, I’m going to keep expanding this map.

You are going to see more.

Because sometimes one connection means very little.

Ten connections begin to tell you something else.

And decades of overlapping relationships deserve serious examination.

THIS IS WHY LEV REMEMBERS EXISTS

You have endless places to get the news.

Lev Remembers is different.

I’m not a journalist.

I’m an insider.

I’m not here simply to tell you what happened yesterday.

I want to help you understand what is happening behind what you’re watching today—who knows whom, how those relationships began, what happened before the cameras arrived, and what we should be watching next.

And I can only continue doing this because of you.

To every paid subscriber:

Thank you.

You make this work possible.

If you’re already paid and you’re able to do more, please consider upgrading to a Founding Membership.

If you’d like to support my work directly, you can do so here:

Venmo: https://venmo.com/LEV-PARNAS

PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/LEVPARNAS

Zelle: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Your support gives me the ability to research, document, build these maps, talk to sources and keep following stories long after the traditional news cycle has moved on.

If you can’t contribute financially, you can still help enormously.

Restack this letter. Share it. Forward it to three or four people.

Help us grow this community.

Make sure you’re following me on KICK, because we’re expanding there to reach people outside the traditional political bubble, especially younger audiences who aren’t getting their information from cable television.

https://kick.com/levparnas

Substack remains our home.

This community remains our foundation.

But we’re taking this work everywhere.

And visit LevRemembers.com and get your copy of Shadow Diplomacy.

If you want to understand how I entered this world, what I witnessed firsthand, and why I recognize so much of what we’re seeing today, that story begins there.

And as for the map you saw today?

Remember it.

Because you’re going to see it again.

Only next time, there will be more names on it.

More people.

More relationships.

More money.

More meetings.

More documents.

And more connections.

I’m going to keep following them.

I’m going to keep documenting them.

And I’m going to keep showing them to you.

Because one dot can be dismissed as a coincidence.

Another can be explained away as business.

Another as friendship.

Another as diplomacy.

But when you finally put the documented dots on the same map, you can begin to see the network that was hiding in plain sight.

-Lev Parnas

Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy Lev Remembers, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe.

PART THREE: THE NETWORK GETS BIGGER

First I showed you the family. Then the inner circle. Now we’re going further—into the lawyers, government officials, businessmen, power brokers and technology billionaires surrounding Donald Trump, and the Russian people, companies and institutions whose names keep appearing along the way.

For years, America has been given pieces of the Trump-Russia story.

One investigation.

One oligarch.

One business deal.

One campaign official.

One Russian company.

One Ukrainian intermediary.

One phone call.

One billionaire.

Then the news cycle moves on.

But relationships don’t disappear just because the headlines do.

That’s the mistake people keep making.

They look at one person and ask whether that individual relationship proves everything.

That’s not how networks work.

You have to follow the introductions.

Follow the money.

Follow the business relationships.

Follow the information.

Follow the intermediaries.

And most importantly, remember the names.

Because people who appear in one chapter have a strange way of resurfacing years later in another.Subscribed

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That’s why Part One mattered.

That’s why Part Two mattered.

And that’s why Part Three goes deeper.

Part One showed you the family.

Part Two showed you some of Trump’s closest associates.

Part Three is about something larger:

the machinery surrounding them.

Lawyers.

Government officials.

Political operators.

Energy executives.

Businessmen.

Technology billionaires.

People with access.

People who open doors.

People whose careers intersected with Russian businesses, Russian state enterprises, Russian oligarchs or Russian officials long before—and sometimes long after—they entered Trump’s world.

And once you put those relationships together, familiar names begin appearing again.

Gazprom.

Rosneft.

Roman Abramovich.

Oleg Deripaska.

Russian intelligence-linked figures.

Kirill Dmitriev.

RDIF.

And ultimately, Vladimir Putin’s government.

Some relationships were commercial.

Some involved information.

Some involved diplomacy.

Some were direct.

Others are still being investigated.

So now let me show you Part Three.

Take some time with this map.

There’s something different about Part Three.

My name is on it.

And there’s a reason.

People sometimes ask how I recognize certain relationships or why particular names immediately stand out to me.

The answer isn’t complicated.

Some of the people on this map weren’t people I learned about years later.

There were conversations.

Introductions.

Business discussions.

Political discussions.

Trips.

Phone calls.

And relationships that allowed me to see how information could travel from one circle into another.

That perspective is important.

A chart can tell you that people were connected.

Understanding the people involved can tell you something about how those connections actually functioned.

And nowhere is that clearer than the next part of this story.

RUDY GIULIANI, DMYTRO FIRTASH — AND MY PLACE IN THE NETWORK

This is one of the sections of the map where my role wasn’t theoretical.

I was the bridge.

Dmytro Firtash is Ukrainian, not Russian.

But his enormous fortune was deeply intertwined with Russian energy through RosUkrEnergo, the gas intermediary jointly owned with Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom.

I was the person who helped connect Firtash with Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova, who became his American lawyers.

I subsequently worked with their legal team as a translator and interpreter.

And behind that legal relationship was another person whose role in the broader political operation mattered enormously:

Rudy Giuliani.

Rudy remained involved behind the scenes and continued overseeing the political side of matters surrounding Firtash even though Toensing and diGenova formally represented him.

I made the introduction.

And I know how the pieces fit because I dealt directly with the people involved.

But Firtash wasn’t the only important Ukraine connection.

One of the people Rudy dealt with was Andrii Derkach.

The United States government ultimately designated Derkach an active Russian agent who maintained close connections with Russian intelligence and accused him of participating in an effort to influence the 2020 American election.

And once you understand who was providing some of the information circulating around this operation, you begin looking differently at how that information reached American politics.

Then there’s Kash Patel.

Patel’s importance didn’t end with Trump’s first administration.

His position inside Trump’s world only grew.

Years later, Patel received $25,000 from Global Tree Pictures, a company run by Russian-born filmmaker Igor Lopatonok, who had previously participated in media projects promoting Kremlin-aligned narratives.

Now stop on another name.

Boris Epshteyn.

Remember it.

Because Boris has been remarkably good at remaining close to the center of Donald Trump’s world while receiving considerably less scrutiny than many people with far shorter histories around Trump.

The election aftermath.

Trump’s legal battles.

And Trump’s personal legal operation.

Boris was born in Moscow.

What interests me is his longevity, access and professional history.

Very few people have managed to remain relevant through so many different chapters of Trump’s political life.

There are parts of Boris’s history that deserve deeper examination.

His consulting work.

His Eastern European business relationships.

His participation in a Moscow investment conference.

Attempts during the 2016 campaign to connect him with figures in the Russian-American business world.

When someone remains this close to power for this long while so much about his broader professional network remains comparatively unexplored, I pay attention.

I’m doing a deeper investigation into Boris now.

And when that work is ready, I’ll show you what I find.

Stay tuned.

THE BUSINESSMEN WHO WALKED INTO GOVERNMENT

Then there is an entirely different branch of this story.

People who didn’t enter Trump’s world through Rudy or Ukraine.

They arrived after years of doing business with Russian companies or Russian state enterprises.

Start with Rex Tillerson.

Before Trump made him secretary of state, Tillerson spent decades at ExxonMobil.

Exxon developed enormous Russian business interests and partnered with state-controlled Rosneft.

Tillerson developed a relationship with Rosneft chief Igor Sechin, one of Putin’s longtime associates.

Putin eventually awarded Tillerson Russia’s Order of Friendship.

The award doesn’t make Tillerson a Russian agent.

That’s not the point.

The important fact is the substantial Russia business relationship that existed before Tillerson ever entered Trump’s administration.

Then there’s Richard Burt.

Burt moved through Trump’s foreign-policy orbit while having professional involvement with interests connected to Gazprom and the Nord Stream pipeline.

And Michael Caputo.

Caputo lived and worked in Russia during the 1990s and had professional experience inside Russia’s media and public-relations environment before eventually becoming a Trump campaign adviser.

Different people.

Different histories.

Different degrees of connection.

But once again, Russia’s state-commercial world appears in the background.

Then there’s Bryce McFerran.

Trump selected McFerran for a senior Export-Import Bank position.

Before entering the administration, McFerran spent years working for East Metals, a subsidiary of Russian steel giant Evraz.

And one of Evraz’s major owners was somebody you already know:

Roman Abramovich.

Look at the maps together.

Part One:

Ivanka → Dasha Zhukova → Roman Abramovich.

Part Three:

McFerran → East Metals → Evraz → Roman Abramovich.

There’s Abramovich again.

That’s why I keep telling you:

Remember the names.

The point isn’t surprise.

The point is recurrence.

When the same people begin surfacing through completely different pathways, those pathways deserve examination.

Then there’s Sergio Gor.

And with Gor, I want to be very precise.

Gor was born Sergey Gorokhovsky in Tashkent in 1986, when Uzbekistan was still part of the Soviet Union.

He matters because of the extraordinary amount of trust and power Donald Trump has placed in him.

Before Trump returned to the White House, Gor had already spent years inside Republican and Trump circles. He worked for Senator Rand Paul, became deeply embedded in Trump’s political world, helped publish Trump’s books, and worked on Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Then Trump gave him one of the most powerful jobs most Americans have probably never heard of:

Director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel.

Think about what that position actually means.

Gor wasn’t simply another communications adviser walking around the West Wing.

His office was responsible for helping identify, vet and place Trump’s political appointees throughout the federal government.

Thousands of positions.

Departments.

Agencies.

People who would carry out the administration’s agenda throughout Washington.

Trump himself said that under Gor’s leadership the administration placed nearly 4,000 appointees across the federal government, including more than 1,000 appointments on Day One, and brought departments and agencies to roughly 95 percent staffing.

In other words, Sergio Gor helped Trump build the personnel infrastructure of his second administration.

That’s significant.

But Trump didn’t leave him there.

He gave Gor another assignment.

India.

Trump nominated Gor to become the United States Ambassador to India and simultaneously selected him to serve as Special Envoy to South and Central Asia.

He was sworn in in November 2025 and took up his post in New Delhi, presenting his credentials to Indian President Droupadi Murmu in January 2026.

And understand what that means geopolitically.

India isn’t some secondary diplomatic posting.

It’s one of the world’s largest countries, a nuclear power, a central player in the Indo-Pacific, a member of BRICS, and a country maintaining important economic, energy and defense relationships with both the United States and Russia.

So Trump took someone he trusted to help staff his government and moved him into one of America’s most consequential diplomatic relationships.

Trump said at Gor’s swearing-in that he was trusting Sergio with strengthening what he called one of America’s most important international relationships.

That tells you something about Gor’s proximity to Trump.

And there’s another part of his history worth understanding.

Before any of this, Gor traveled to Moscow in 2018 while working for Senator Rand Paul on a Cato Institute-sponsored congressional trip involving U.S.-Russia relations. Records also reportedly show a brief Moscow transit in 2017.

That’s a remarkable trajectory for someone most Americans couldn’t identify in a photograph.

And it’s why Sergio Gor remains on my research board.

Because when somebody earns this level of Donald Trump’s trust, helps decide who enters the administration, and then gets sent into one of the most strategically complicated regions in the world.

THEN THE STORY ENTERS THE TECH WORLD

This is where Part Three becomes very different from the Trump world of 2016.

Today’s center of power isn’t populated only by politicians, lawyers and traditional businessmen.

Technology has created another class of enormously influential people.

People who control communications platforms.

Artificial intelligence.

Data.

Satellites.

Cloud infrastructure.

Search.

Defense technology.

And increasingly, access to political power.

So the tech world belongs in this conversation too.

Start with Elon Musk.

Musk isn’t simply another billionaire.

SpaceX sits inside America’s national-security infrastructure.

Starlink became strategically important to Ukraine.

And Musk has been reported to have communicated privately with Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin disputed the reported extent and frequency of those communications.

That matters.

But so does Musk’s position.

One of the most powerful private technology executives in the world, whose companies perform sensitive work for the American government and whose satellite network became crucial to Ukraine, reportedly communicated with Russia’s president while also becoming a major figure in Trump’s political world.

Peter Thiel’s story is different.

Russian-linked figures reportedly sought access to him.

Russian former government official Sergey Belyakov obtained access to Thiel through Jeffrey Epstein.

Belyakov subsequently had an association with the Russian Direct Investment Fund.

And then we return to Kirill Dmitriev.

Remember this name.

Dmitriev runs the Russian Direct Investment Fund and serves as a Putin envoy.

He appeared around Erik Prince.

He appears around Jared Kushner.

He appears around Steve Witkoff.

His institution intersects with the Belyakov network.

And today this isn’t ancient history.

Dmitriev remains part of current U.S.-Russia diplomacy.

Witkoff and Kushner have met directly with Putin.

Dmitriev has participated in discussions involving Ukraine and potential future U.S.-Russia economic and energy cooperation.

Different Americans.

Different years.

Different circumstances.

Yet certain Russian individuals and institutions continue to surface.

That’s the pattern I’m documenting.

NOW PUT ALL THREE MAPS TOGETHER

This is where I want you to pull back.

Don’t look at Part Three alone.

Put it next to Parts One and Two.

The family.

The advisers.

The attorneys.

The businessmen.

Government officials.

Energy executives.

Technology billionaires.

Then look at the other side.

Gazprom.

Rosneft.

Abramovich.

Deripaska.

Derkach.

Russian intelligence-linked networks.

RDIF.

Dmitriev.

Putin.

Why do some of the same Russian people, companies and institutions keep appearing through different pathways, across different decades and in different corners of Trump’s world?

That’s the question these maps help us investigate.

Relationships rarely announce their importance when they’re created.

Sometimes it begins with an introduction.

A business deal.

A lawyer.

A phone call.

A favor.

An intermediary.

Somebody who knows somebody.

Then years later, something that once seemed insignificant becomes important.

That’s why I’m preserving these connections.

So we can see the larger picture as it develops.

AND THERE IS MORE

Part Three doesn’t finish this series.

There are still people I’m researching.

Businesses.

Financial relationships.

Technology investments.

Government appointments.

Russian state companies.

American intermediaries.

One documented connection at a time.

Before I close, I want to say something about this community.

I call you subscribers because that’s what the button says.

But that’s not really how I think about you anymore.

You’re part of a family.

Every paid subscription gives this platform more independence.

It gives us time to investigate instead of simply reacting.

It allows us to stay with documents, sources and relationships after the daily news cycle moves somewhere else.

It helps fund the maps, the live shows and the deeper investigations we’re building.

And our Founding Members allow us to push even further.

That’s the platform I want Lev Remembers to be.

Independent.

Persistent.

Willing to ask uncomfortable questions.

And willing to stay with a story after everybody else has moved on.

If you’re already paid and you’re able to help us build the next stage, consider becoming a Founding Member.

And to everyone who already supports this work:

Thank you.

You are the reason it can continue.

For anyone who prefers to contribute directly:

Venmo: https://venmo.com/LEV-PARNAS

PayPal: https://paypal.me/LEVPARNAS

Zelle: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

And if contributing financially isn’t possible, there is another way to help.

Share this letter.

Restack it.

Forward it to three or four people.

Every new reader makes this independent community stronger.

OCTOBER 5 — WE EXPAND

Now we’re taking the next step.

October 5.

Our grand launch on KICK.

https://kick.com/levparnas

We’re expanding there because this information needs to reach beyond the traditional political audience.

Especially younger people.

People who aren’t watching cable news.

People who consume information differently.

I want to meet them where they are.

And I want this community there with me.

Follow me on KICK.

Join us October 5.

Bring somebody with you.

But remember:

Substack remains our home.

This is where we go deeper.

This is where the investigations continue.

And this is where this community was built.

Finally, visit LevRemembers.com and get your copy of Shadow Diplomacy.

If you want the fuller story of how these worlds intersect, why intermediaries matter and how seemingly disconnected relationships can converge, that’s where much of this journey begins.

Part One was the family.

Part Two was the inner circle.

Part Three is the machinery surrounding them.

And there are still names hiding in plain sight.

Relationships that haven’t received the scrutiny they deserve.

People close to power today whose histories need another look.

That’s what comes next.

We’re not finished.

Not even close.

Stay with me.

There are more dots to connect.

Lev Rembers, EXPOSED — PART THREE: The Trump-Russia Network Gets Bigger, Lev Parnas, right, Oct. 1, 2026. We mapped the family. We followed the inner circle. Now the trail reaches lawyers, government officials, business power brokers and tech billionaires—and some familiar Russian names keep appearing.

PART THREE: THE NETWORK GETS BIGGER

First I showed you the family. Then the inner circle. Now we’re going further—into the lawyers, government officials, businessmen, power brokers and technology billionaires surrounding Donald Trump, and the Russian people, companies and institutions whose names keep appearing along the way.

For years, America has been given pieces of the Trump-Russia story.

One investigation.

One oligarch.

One business deal.

One campaign official.

One Russian company.

One Ukrainian intermediary.

One phone call.

One billionaire.

Then the news cycle moves on.

But relationships don’t disappear just because the headlines do.

That’s the mistake people keep making.

They look at one person and ask whether that individual relationship proves everything.

That’s not how networks work.

You have to follow the introductions.

Follow the money.

Follow the business relationships.

Follow the information.

Follow the intermediaries.

And most importantly, remember the names.

Because people who appear in one chapter have a strange way of resurfacing years later in another.

2025

Dec. 6-7

Lev Remembers, Commentary: Trump’s New “National Security Strategy” Is a Surrender Deal to Putin, Lev Parnas, right, former Trump advisor and author of Shadow Diplomacy, below left, Dec. 6-7, 2025. Quietly released blueprint lifts pressure off Russia, pushes a take-it-or-leave-it “peace” on Ukraine, and outlines a far-right world order the media won’t tell you about.

The Trump White House quietly dropped a new “National Security Strategy of the United States of America – November 2025” on the official site.

No press conference. No prime-time speech. No honest debate. Just a 30+ page blueprint that tells you everything you need to know about where Trump wants to take America – and who he’s really working for.

I’ve read it. I’ve talked to my sources. I know how these people think because I used to be in the room with them.

What I’m about to walk you through is not going to be on cable news tonight.

What This Document Really Says (Not the Spin): On the surface, this “National Security Strategy” is wrapped in patriotic language and buzzwords like “America First,” “peace through strength,” and “protecting sovereignty.”

But if you read past the slogans, here’s what it really lays out:

• Trump declares the era of “mass migration” over and says border policy is the primary element of national security. That’s code for using fear and division at home as a political weapon.
• He brags that his foreign policy is “non-interventionist” – not because he hates war, but because he wants to pick and choose where he intervenes based on deals, leverage, and personal loyalty, not values.
• There’s a full section about “burden-shifting” and “ending the days of the U.S. propping up the world order” – which sounds good until you realize what it means in practice: Walk away from commitments, tell allies “you’re on your own,” and create vacuums Russia and other authoritarian regimes can fill.
• Europe is scolded for being weak and “losing its identity,” while the document openly says the U.S. wants to re-establish “strategic stability” with Russia and negotiate a quick end to the war in Ukraine to stabilize European economies. Translation: Get Ukraine off the agenda, restore business as usual with Moscow, and move on.
• Trump’s team literally brands him “The President of Peace” and lists a fantasy checklist of peace deals he supposedly delivered around the world – including claiming he “ended the war in Gaza” and stitched up conflicts from the Balkans to Africa. That’s not strategy; that’s propaganda.

On paper, it looks like a “serious policy document.” In reality, it’s a roadmap for a far-right world order: strongmen doing deals while democracies are told to sit down, shut up, and “adapt.”

Where Ukraine Fits in: “Negotiated Peace” on Putin’s Terms. Let’s focus on what this means for Ukraine, because that’s where the mask really slips.

Buried in the Europe section, Trump’s strategy says the U.S. goal is to:

• Re-establish “strategic stability” with Russia
• Negotiate an “expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine”
• Stabilize European economies and move on to “post-hostilities reconstruction” of Ukraine as a “viable state”

It sounds technical. It’s not.

That’s code for a “take it or leave it” deal:

• Lock in Russian control over occupied Ukrainian territory.
• Force Kyiv into a frozen conflict or sham peace where Russia keeps the leverage.
• Let European elites and Trump’s oligarch friends go back to doing business as usual – energy, minerals, investments, and sanctions relief.

Now line that up with what my sources have been telling you for months:

• Quiet moves to ease sanctions on Russian energy interests, including players like Lukoil, right after high-level talks.
• Back-channel conversations about a 28-point “peace” plan that carves up Ukraine like a real estate project – treating human lives as line items.
• Pressure on European governments behind the scenes: “You want stability? Take the deal and stop talking about full Ukrainian victory.”
• Putin bombs cities, kidnaps children, smashes infrastructure.
• Trump releases a “strategy” that says, in polite language: Let’s hurry up and formalize this so we can all get back to making money.
• That’s the game.

“Don’t Listen to What They Say. Watch What They Do.” In this document, Trump calls himself the “President of Peace” and wraps everything in “non-interventionism” and “respect for sovereignty.”

At the very same time:

• Russian missiles and drones are still slamming into Ukrainian cities.
• Energy and industrial targets are being deliberately hit to freeze and starve civilians.
• Kidnapped kids are still missing, families destroyed, lives shattered.

This is why I keep telling you: Don’t listen to what they say. Watch what they do.

• They say: “We’re ending mass migration.”
• They do: fuel wars and instability that force more people to flee.
• They say: “We’re defending sovereignty.”
• They do: reward Putin for invading a sovereign country and rewrite borders by force.
• They say: “We’re shifting burdens to our allies.”
• They do: signal to Europe that America is stepping back – and to Putin that the door is open.

And remember: while this glossy strategy is being quietly posted, sanctions are being chipped away and “peace proposals” are being drafted that look a lot like surrender for Ukraine and a reset button for Moscow.

Why This Is a National Security Threat to Us, Not Just Ukraine

This isn’t just about Ukraine’s survival – though that alone would be enough. This “strategy” tells you exactly where Trump wants to drag the United States:

• A world where far-right regimes and oligarchs set the rules, and democracies are told to accept “realities” created by tanks and missiles.
• A NATO that’s weakened, divided, and eventually hollowed out because “the era of America propping up the world order is over.”
• A Europe pushed toward a dirty compromise with Russia while U.S. leadership is replaced by transactional deals, tariffs, and energy leverage.
• When America’s official doctrine says “mass migration is over,” “burden shifting,” and “expeditious peace in Ukraine” all in one breath, what they’re really telling you is this:
• We are restructuring the world around interests, not values – and we’re fine with letting Putin keep his spoils.
• That’s not national security.
• That’s authoritarian alignment dressed up as strategy.

While Trump’s team is writing strategy papers that treat Ukraine like a bargaining chip, Oleksandr is on the ground in Ukraine, where none of these people will ever set foot without a motorcade and cameras.

Nov. 23

Lev Remembers, Opinion: EXPOSED: The 28-Point ‘Peace Plan’ Was a Russian Play — Laundered Through Trump’s Inner Circle, Lev Parnas, right, Nov. 23, 2025. How a Kremlin-written dossier was translated, sanitized, and pushed into U.S. policy channels —The October handoff, and the backchannel that’s turning American foreign policy into an oligarch pipeline.

I have some extremely disturbing news today — news I’ve been warning you about for the past several weeks, and news that is finally being confirmed publicly.Subscribed

What Washington has been calling a “28-point peace plan” for Ukraine was never a U.S. plan. It was never negotiated.  It never went through the State Department. And it was never the product of American diplomacy.

Multiple sources familiar with the drafting process — including individuals with direct insight into earlier versions — now confirm that the original document contained 30 points, not 28. And those two missing points were removed for one reason: they were so blatantly pro-Russian that leaving them in would have exposed the document instantly as a Kremlin creation.

What we are looking at is not diplomacy. It’s not policy. This was a Russian plan disguised as American strategy, laundered through Trump’s shadow network. And for several days, the Trump Administration allowed this Russian document to circulate across Washington as though it carried the weight and authority of the United States government.

This is not a misunderstanding. This is a national security breach. 

A Foreign Power Delivered the Plan — Not the U.S. Government

My sources have confirmed for weeks what Senators Rounds and King finally acknowledged publicly: this document came from Russia, delivered through an intermediary into Marco Rubio’s orbit.

But here is the part the public still hasn’t fully absorbed:

In October, Kirill Dmitriev, left, handed this plan directly to Trump’s unofficial envoy, Steve Witkoff, right— Trumps loyal fixer, not a diplomat — who then pushed it into U.S. channels almost word-for-word. The language wasn’t even changed. It was translated from Russian. That’s it.

Earlier drafts — the 30-point version — included two explosive demands:

1. A requirement for the U.S. and Western investors to bail out Russia’s economy after the war.

2. A proposed U.S.–Russia “Christian union” alliance aimed against China.

These are not ideas American diplomats would ever put on paper. These are pure Kremlin objectives. They were removed only to make the plan look American enough for Trump’s circle to push. This is how propaganda becomes “policy.”

This is how foreign powers infiltrate the machinery of the United States government when private envoys replace real diplomats. 

And While Trump Plays Power Games, Ukrainians Are Burying Their Children

We cannot lose sight of the human cost. While Trump’s inner circle tries to run shadow diplomacy with Moscow, Ukrainian families are in the ground right now, burying their sons and daughters — killed by the very regime that drafted the document Trump’s people attempted to slip into the bloodstream of American foreign policy. These operations have consequences measured in human lives. And I will not stop telling you the truth about this.

Now the Same Network Is Targeting Venezuela

While this crisis unfolds in Ukraine, my sources are warning that a parallel operation has begun in Venezuela, running through many of the same channels, intermediaries, and Trump-aligned power brokers.

Let me say this clearly:

This is not humanitarian policy. This is not democratic reform. This is regime change engineered by Trump insiders who have been circling Venezuela’s oil reserves for years.My sources describe the objective as simple and brutal:

Install a government aligned with Trumpworld’s business interests and gain control over one of the largest oil reserves on Earth.

• This is about power.
• This is about money.
• This is about control.
• And it is happening right now, behind closed doors, with zero transparency and even less accountability.

The Ukraine plan shows you the playbook. Venezuela is the sequel. Enough talk. It’s time for action. What I’m exposing here is not a small story. It is a threat to democracy, to global security, and to the integrity of American foreign policy. Trump’s network is trying to run a private foreign policy — with Moscow’s fingerprints on the documents, and with American lives and strategic interests on the line.

And yes, bringing you this information puts me in danger. There are people who do not want these backchannels exposed. But I’m not stopping. I can’t. Because the truth is the only weapon we have left against a movement built on secrecy and deception.

But I cannot do this alone.Here’s how you can help — right now

1. Become a paid subscriber. You make this work possible. Your support keeps this reporting independent and protects my ability to keep exposing these networks.

2. Support Ukraine directly. While Trump plays empire with oligarchs, Ukrainians are fighting and dying to survive.

Oct. 18

 

Lev Remembers, NO KINGS: Today We Rise – The Day Millions Stand United Against Trump’s Authoritarian Rule, Lev Parnas, Oct. 18, 2025. This is the moment the world will remember—when the American people stood up, rejected tyranny, and declared in one voice: We bow to no kings, not now, not ever.

My dear Lev Remembers and Voice from Ukraine family,

Today is not just a day on the calendar—it is a turning point in human history.Subscribed

This is the day we say together, with one voice heard across every city, every platform, every street in America and around the world: NO KINGS.

No man is born above us. No leader will rule us. No dictator can buy us, silence us, or make us kneel.

“Free people do not wait for permission to be free—they stand, they speak, and they act.”

Donald Trump is afraid today. I know this from my sources. He is terrified—not of institutions, not of Congress, not of the media—but of you. Of the millions rising in peaceful resistance. He fears the sight of people filling the streets. He fears your voice, your power, your unity.

And I speak to you now not as a commentator, not as a former insider, but as a father. As a man who wakes up every morning under threat, not just for myself—but for my family, for my wife, and for my son Aaron, who is standing on the front line of this battle for our democracy. I feel your fear. I live your fear.

But today I tell you with absolute conviction: do not let fear silence you—let it awaken you.

“Courage is not the absence of fear—it is the decision that something else is more important.”

And today, freedom is more important.

No Kings means the end of blind obedience. It means every American—Democrat, Republican, Independent—joining to say:

No one is above the law.

Elections are not coronations.

Power belongs to the people—and today, the people speak.

WHAT YOU MUST DO TODAY

Not everyone can protest—but everyone can participate:

🔥 If you can march, march today.

🔥 If you can hold a sign, hold it high.

🔥 If you can post this letter, post it everywhere.

🔥 If you can call Congress, light up those phone lines.

🔥 And if you can fund this movement, become a paid subscriber, contribute directly, and help us reach millions more.

This is the day we show Trump that America does not kneel. We stand. We rise.

Oct. 17

Lev Remembers Analysis: Breaking: Two-Week Donnie Is Back The Deal Behind Trump’s Budapest Summit With Putin, Lev Parnas, right, Oct. 17, 2025. The Kremlin’s real plan is to plunge Ukraine into darkness — and Trump is helping them buy time.

For those of you who’ve been reading, listening, and supporting Lev Remembers and Voice from Ukraine, you’re not shocked by Trump’s latest flip-flop. The media’s acting surprised — pretending this is some new development — but you already know better. You’ve heard me say it for weeks: this was coming. There’s a reason I call him Two-Week Donnie. Every time he needs to buy time, cover something up, or play both sides, it’s always two more weeks.Subscribed

And now here we are again. Yesterday, as the world waited for Trump’s big meeting with President Zelensky — where he promised to deliver long-range Tomahawk missiles and “turn on Russia” — Trump pulled the same move he always does. Before sitting down with Zelensky, he quietly picked up the phone and called Vladimir Putin. And just like before, the timing isn’t coincidence. It’s a pattern. Remember the Alaska summit? Right before new sanctions and before the Epstein files were set to drop, they announced a “meeting for peace.” Now, right before new weapons are set to reach Ukraine, he does it again — another call, another delay, another two-week stall.

So here we are. For the next two weeks — or however long he can stretch it — Russia will keep bombing Ukraine, pounding its cities, and trying to break its spirit. Trump’s betting that Putin can crush Ukraine just enough to bring them to their knees, so he can swoop in like a “white knight” and sell it as a peace deal, the same performance he staged in the Middle East. But what he doesn’t understand — and what Putin still refuses to learn — is that Ukraine isn’t going down. Not now. Not ever.

And while Trump talks about peace, Putin continues his nightly terror on Ukraine.

Last night, Russia launched 70 attack drones and a record 28 ballistic missiles — the largest missile barrage since the war began.

Ukraine’s air defense shot down half, but the others struck energy facilities, homes, and factories.

No, this wasn’t about military targets — it was about breaking Ukraine’s will before winter.

Kryvyi Rih burned again. Energy stations hit. Civilians freezing in the dark.

While Russia continues it’s onslaught on the Ukrainian people, Trump was on the phone with Putin — and make no mistake, this was a celebration, not a negotiation. Putin opened by congratulating Trump on his Middle East moves, then slid straight into promises of post-war trade and business deals. He’s selling a future where Russia crushes Ukrainian resistance just enough to bring Kyiv to its knees — and Trump, hungry for a headline “peace” deal and profits, is listening. This isn’t diplomacy; it’s a transaction: bombs and blackouts on the ground, boardrooms and trade deals in the wings.

While children in Ukraine are dying, Trump is talking about business opportunities with the Kremlin.

After the call, Putin’s negotiator Kirill Dmitriev went on X (Twitter) and proposed a “Putin–Trump Unity Tunnel” through the Bering Strait — connecting the U.S. and Russia, literally.

He even tagged Elon Musk, promising it could be built for $65 billion, or “just $8 billion with Musk’s help.”

He called Hungary a “voice of reason” and a “peacemaker.”

You can’t make this up. These are not negotiations — this is a delusion being sold to the world as diplomacy.

Meanwhile, Hungary’s foreign minister proudly announced that Putin will be “respectfully welcomed” in Budapest — ICC warrant or not.

That’s not respect. That’s complicity.

President Zelensky landed in Washington full of hope — expecting long-range Tomahawks and serious commitments. Instead, he found out Trump was secretly setting up a meeting with Putin in Budapest.

That’s betrayal. Plain and simple.

And make no mistake: Trump’s delay on sending U.S. long-range weapons — “just two more weeks” — is not about timing. It’s about leverage. Putin promised him something, and Trump is holding Ukraine hostage for it.

Trump lives in his own world — a bubble where truth doesn’t exist, only perception. Every dictator in history started believing their own lies.

That’s what makes this moment so dangerous.

He claims he’s sanctioning Russia — yet quietly opens doors for trade.

He says India “cut off” Russian oil — and within hours, India denied it ever happened.

He says he stands with Ukraine — then arranges a summit with its killer.

This is not chaos. This is a pattern.

And I told you — follow the actions, not the words.

Oct. 8

Lev Remembers, Trump’s Revenge Tour continues — Jack Smith and Christopher Wray in His Crosshairs, Lev Parnas, right, Oct. 7-8, 2025. Trump pressures Pam Bondi to indict his enemies and embraces Project 2025, rewrite January 6th, and turn the DOJ into his own reality-show court of vengeance., 

I’ll never forget October 9th, 2019.

That was the day Bill Barr weaponized the Department of Justice — the day I was arrested to be silenced. They wanted to bury the truth, the same truth I’m bringing you now. That date has haunted me ever since — and here we are, on October 9th, 2025, we will watch Donald Trump begin his own revenge tour, turning our justice system into his next season of “Apprentice: The Indictment Tour.”Subscribed

James Comey is expected to be formally arraigned — with Trump demanding nothing less than a public perp walk. This is his theater of vengeance, his way of showing the world that no one who ever stood up to him is safe. And more indictments are coming.

I know the names you’ve been hearing for weeks — Adam Schiff, Letitia James, the usual targets of Trump’s anger and blame. But what I’m hearing tonight from my sources is far more serious. Donald Trump has shifted his sights. The focus now is on Christopher Wray and Jack Smith — two men who stand at the center of Trump’s desperate plan to rewrite history.

Trump is pressuring Pam Bondi and his loyalists to move aggressively against them.

For Wray, it’s about creating a narrative that the FBI — the so-called “Deep State” — orchestrated January 6th from within. Trump wants to erase the truth, to make it seem as though the chaos was an inside job rather than a MAGA-driven insurrection. For Jack Smith, it’s personal — Trump’s ultimate revenge against the man who indicted him on federal charges, the one prosecutor he cannot intimidate or control.

Trump’s goal is simple: to rewrite January 6th, to recast himself as the victim instead of the instigator. He wants to frame Wray as the villain, the supposed architect of a conspiracy that never existed. He wants to erase his own fingerprints from history, washing away the blood of that day with a new lie.

And make no mistake — what I’m hearing is terrifying, because this is just the beginning. The opening act of Trump’s Revenge Tour has begun. He’s not hiding anymore. He’s turning the justice system upside down, targeting everyone who stood between him and absolute power — and he’s doing it out in the open. And more indictments are coming.

As Trump pushes Pam Bondi to do his dirty work, he’s also weaponizing the narrative machine.

He’s funding propaganda networks, aligning loyal state National Guards, and turning Project 2025 from a policy blueprint into an active operational playbook.

If they succeed in rewriting January 6th, they’ll rewrite all of it — from Charlottesville to Ukraine, from COVID to corruption.

We’re watching a movement built on lies mutate into a state-sponsored rewriting of history.

And while the media scrolls on to the next headline, Trump’s inner circle is busy turning this democracy into a monarchy.

That’s why we can’t sit back.

We can’t just watch history being erased — we must be the ink that writes it back.

What we need right now isn’t the same old tired playbook — we need new blood and bold leadership.

A new generation of Democratic leaders willing to stop playing defense and start taking this fight straight to Trump and MAGA, day after day.

Leaders with fire in their hearts and truth in their minds, who are fearless, unafraid, and unbought.

We don’t need caretakers of a broken system — we need warriors for democracy, ready to lead with courage, conviction, and clarity. Because this moment isn’t about politics anymore. It’s about survival. It’s about who we are, and whether we still have the strength to fight for the America we love.

Oct. 1

 

 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth focused remarks on the importance for the department of a "Warrior Ethos."

Lev Remembers, Urgent: America at the Edge — Trump’s Shutdown, Indictments & the Generals’ Test, Lev Parnas,right, Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2025. Not random. Not coincidence. A coordinated push to rewrite history and cripple democracy.

As I sit here just hours away from the government shutting down, I want you to pause and really hear me. This isn’t about another budget fight in Washington. This is a deliberate, coordinated push to advance Project 2025 — and they’re not even hiding it anymore.

Donald Trump is warning Democrats that once the shutdown happens, he will begin making “irreversible changes” — mass firings, dismantling programs, and gutting our institutions — all while still blaming the other side.

At the same time, while Washington was consumed with the looming shutdown, down in Quantico Trump was turning his focus on the generals.

Even as he moves to weaken the government in D.C., he is testing the loyalty of our military leadership, seeking to bring them under his control. This is not coincidence — it is a coordinated two-front assault: cripple the government in the Capitol, and coerce the military into obedience at Quantico.

History is clear: for any dictatorship to take root, it must secure the loyalty of the military. That’s exactly what we’re witnessing now. My sources tell me there is already a list of generals they want gone. This isn’t speculation. This is a purge-in-progress.

But it doesn’t stop there.

I’m also hearing from my sources that the indictments are not over. More are coming. And simultaneously, Trump and his allies are preparing a full-scale campaign to rewrite history itself. What they want to do with January 6th is exactly what the Chinese regime did with Tiananmen Square — bury it, erase it, and replace it with a propaganda version that claims it was a “deep state Democrat operation” to set up Donald Trump, not a MAGA insurrection.

This is the story they are trying to cement into the public record — a lie meant to absolve Trump and vilify his opponents.

Think about it: Speaker Mike Johnson did everything he could to keep the Epstein files from being released. Why? Because Trump is doing everything he can to bury them permanently. These are not isolated actions. These are pieces of a larger strategy — part of Project 2025 — to consolidate power, erase the truth, and crush accountability.

• The shutdown.
• The purge of generals.
• The propaganda campaign to rewrite January 6th.
• The suppression of the Epstein files.
• The upcoming indictments.
• The attacks on American cities.

This is all preparation for what’s coming next: a future with no fair and square elections in 2026 and beyond. Everything I’ve been warning you about is coming to a head right now.

Our last line of defense is no longer Congress. It’s no longer the courts. It’s the men and women of our military — our generals, our veterans, our military families. These are people who swore an oath to the Constitution, not to any one man. They have risked everything to protect our freedoms, and now they’re being put in an impossible position.

Trump has already floated using the military against American citizens. He needs generals who will obey illegal orders. We cannot let that happen.

Our generals and military leaders have given their lives to serve this country. They’ve fought wars abroad, endured unimaginable sacrifices alongside their families, and stood as a shield so that we could live free under the Constitution. That same Constitution is now under attack from within. The clear and present danger to our democracy is not America’s cities or its people — it is Project 2025 and those driving it. These leaders must recognize the real threat, stand firm, and refuse unlawful orders. Their loyalty must remain with the American people and the Constitution, not with any one man. They cannot step aside or allow this purge to happen. They are now being called upon to defend the very freedoms they swore to protect — to stand up, to say no, and to ensure that our democracy survives.

So I’m pleading with you: call every veteran you know. Call every military family. Share this message far and wide. Let them know we see them. We support them. And we need them to support us — to support the Constitution over any would-be dictator.

This isn’t politics. This is about the survival of our democracy.

I don’t write these letters lightly. I risk everything to bring you these truths. And with every purge, every whistleblower forced out, it gets more dangerous by the day, by the hour. One day, if we don’t act now, we may wake up and discover our freedom to speak has vanished.

This isn’t just a newsletter. This is a movement. Every truth I risk to bring you, is because I believe our voices together can stop what Donald Trump and Project 2025 are trying to do to this country.

Sept. 28

 

Lev Remembers, Commentary, Russian Drones Sweep NATO Countries as Putin Launches Deadliest Assault on Ukraine, Lev Parnas, right, Sept. 28, 2025. Civilian casualties mount in Ukraine while Lavrov threatens Europe and Russian drones sweep across NATO countries.

The night of September 27–28 will be remembered as one of the darkest chapters in this war.

As Kyiv’s families tried to sleep, Russia launched a 12-hour mass assault on Ukraine. Sirens wailed, children were rushed into shelters, and the skies filled with the ominous buzz of Shahed drones. From occupied Crimea, from Kursk and Bryansk, from the depths of Russia itself, Moscow hurled nearly 650 drones and missiles at the capital and beyond.

Ukraine’s air defenses fought like never before. Jets scrambled. Mobile fire groups hunted drones in city streets. By dawn, 611 enemy targets had been destroyed — an extraordinary feat of resilience.

But some broke through. Five missiles and 31 drones struck homes and towns across 16 locations. Debris rained on 25 more. Kyiv’s mayor reported 4 dead and 13 wounded. In the wider region, 27 more civilians were injured in Bucha, Fastiv, and Bila Tserkva. These were not military strikes. They were attacks on neighborhoods, schools, and families.

Even as Ukraine endured the assault, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stood at the United Nations. His speech was met with empty seats, but his words carried the same venom as the missiles in Kyiv:

• “There will be war with NATO.”
• “Ukraine will not get back its lands; we will not return even to 2022 borders.”
• “Any aggression against Russia will be met with a decisive response.”

This was not diplomacy. It was a declaration.

And while Lavrov threatened NATO from New York, unidentified drones appeared across Europe.

• Over hydro plants in Finland.
• Near the Nammo ammunition factory in Norway.
• Over energy facilities and military sites in Germany, Denmark, France, and the Baltics.

These are not coincidences. This is Russia probing NATO’s defenses, collecting intelligence, preparing the battlefield.

Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said it clearly: “Germans should forget about living a calm life — the threat is real.”

He is right. The calm life is over.

The Kremlin’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, tried to twist the story, insisting that Ukraine was staging false flags by sending drones over Europe. But this is the same old playbook. Moscow always accuses others of the very crimes it plans to commit. These “unknown drones” are not Ukrainian provocations. They are Russia’s deliberate hybrid warfare strategy—silent probes of NATO’s defenses, a prelude to escalation.

While Ukraine fights through fire and Europe prepares for the worst, Donald Trump turns away. He abandons Ukraine, leaving it to be carved up by Moscow. He silences voices at home, attacks the press, and buries the truth while handing Putin the freedom to redraw Europe’s map.

Ukraine cannot be left to die. NATO cannot afford to wait. This is the moment where freedom either stands or falls.

Sept. 23

Lev Remembers, Commentary, Putin Threatens Nukes, Europe Shuts Down, Lev Parnas, right, Sept. 23, 2025. While Americans are fighting to hold onto democracy at home, Ukraine is still fighting for survival under relentless Russian missile and drone strikes — Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, and cities across the country hit again last night.

At the same time, Ukraine is striking back, reaching deep into Russian territory and occupied Crimea with precision drone and missile attacks that are rattling Moscow itself. And in the middle of this, Putin is once again playing his most dangerous card: nuclear blackmail, space-based threats, and escalating tension across Europe.

At a meeting with his Security Council, Putin returned to his old playbook: nuclear blackmail. He warned the West that Russia would not answer threats with words but with “military-technical measures,” lifting the self-imposed moratorium on deploying intermediate-range missiles.Subscribed

He accused the U.S. of killing arms control dialogue, all while claiming Russia won’t withdraw from New START — but only so long as it suits him. After February 5, 2026, he says, Moscow will “decide whether to maintain these voluntary self-restraints.” In other words, the leash is off, and the world is on notice.

Then came his warning about Trump’s so-called “Golden Dome” project — a plan to launch space-based weapons under the cover of missile defense. Putin knows what it means if America militarizes space: his strategic leverage vanishes. That’s why he threatened “appropriate responses,” reminding the world that Russia views satellites not as tools of defense, but as potential targets.

And while the world is watching drones explode in Ukraine, what’s not being talked about enough is how Ukraine is pushing the fight back across the border. Ukrainian drones and missiles are hitting airfields, oil depots, and military targets in occupied Crimea and inside Russia itself. These are deliberate strikes to cut supply lines, weaken Russia’s war machine, and show that Putin’s territory is no longer untouchable.

Even as Odesa buries its dead after another night of terror, Ukraine is making sure the Kremlin feels the costs of its invasion — not just in Donbas, but in Moscow’s own backyard.

As Putin blustered about nuclear treaties and space weapons, the war he started was knocking on his own door. Overnight, explosions rattled Moscow as drones penetrated deep into the capital. Sobyanin, the Kremlin’s loyal mayor, admitted nine drones were shot down across districts like Chertanovo, Solntsevo, and Southern Butovo.

Sheremetyevo Airport — Russia’s busiest — was forced to shut down, with flights diverted or frozen midair. Residents described the terror of a cargo plane roaring low over their homes as it tried to avoid the chaos. This is Putin’s war coming home to roost.

And the scariest part — the part the media still refuses to say out loud — is Putin’s constant push against NATO itself. This isn’t just about Ukraine anymore. Every drone, every missile, every airspace violation is a test of the alliance, a way to probe defenses and measure the West’s resolve. Because while across Europe last night panic spread like wildfire,

Copenhagen Airport was shut down after sightings of 2–4 massive drones. At least 50 flights canceled, 50 more diverted. The Danish capital paralyzed in minutes.

Norway scrambled jets as drones buzzed Oslo — including the Ministry of Defense itself.

Cyberattack on Collins Aerospace crippled check-in systems from London to Berlin. Staff scrambled to process passengers by hand as flights piled up on the tarmac .Poland’s PM Donald Tusk issued the strongest warning yet: “If another Russian missile or plane enters our airspace and is shot down, don’t complain — you’ve been warned.”

This is not just about drones. It’s about the hybrid war being waged across land, air, cyberspace, and politics — with Europe as the testing ground.

This is the world Putin and Trump are shaping — chaos as strategy, fear as leverage, distraction as power. While Putin rattles the nuclear saber and calls out Trump’s “Golden Dome,” drones are striking Ukraine, airports across Europe are shutting down, and cyberattacks are testing NATO’s response times.

The message to us is simple: they want us divided, distracted, and demoralized. But I’ve been in those rooms, I’ve carried Trump’s messages, and I know how this game is played. They count on silence. They count on fear.

I’m not just bringing you the news. I’m risking everything to bring you the truth — the truth that mainstream media still tiptoes around, and the truth Trump and Putin don’t want you to know.

Sept. 21

 

President Trump's message on Sept. 20 to U.S. Attorney Gen. Pam Bondi demanding prosecutions of Trump's political enemies without delay.

Lev Remembers, Trump’s Dynasty or America’s Democracy, Lev Parnas, right, Sept. 21, 2025. From gold-plated ballrooms to Colosseum-style spectacles, Trump is building a throne for himself — while burying the Epstein files and shredding the Constitution

As you prepare for the week ahead, I need you to listen to me — be ready. My sources are telling me there’s a lot coming this week; they’ve got a plan to distract, to confuse, to stage headlines that pull your eyes away from the real story. They will roll out spectacle after spectacle this week, and all of it is designed to bury the truth. Don’t let them set the agenda.

Monday — I’m hearing — Trump is preparing an announcement tied to the health system: vaccines and autism. It’s the kind of headline that grabs attention and divides people.

At the same time, expect pressure on Letitia (Letitia) James, Adam Schiff, and James Comey to intensify. Pam Bondi will be front and center pushing the narrative. You’ll see her in the headlines, acting as the hammer for the legal theater they want to stage.

They will use Charlie Kirk’s death as cover — turn martyrdom into a weapon — to gaslight people into supporting Project 2025’s checklist: strip rights, hollow out institutions, and rewrite the rules that keep checks on power.

These aren’t jokes. They aren’t headlines for late-night comedy. They are signals. Symbols of a man who believes reality itself must bend to his will. This is not about governing. This is about spectacle, about power, about erasing the line between democracy and dictatorship.

While all this chaos is playing out, he’s busy turning the White House into Mar-a-Lago on steroids — gold glinting across the Oval, a $200 million ballroom being dreamed up, the Rose Garden refitted into a private membership club. They’re the gestures of someone intent on building a dynasty — a Trump name that will echo Royalty and power in American history. My sources tell me that since his trip to the U.K. he’s talked openly about legacy, and about making the White House a monument to himself. Make no mistake: this is not the work of someone planning to leave anytime soon.

And now, layered on top of that, he’s planning UFC fights on the front lawn of the White House — a spectacle ripped straight from the Roman Colosseum, where blood sport was used to keep the crowds distracted while emperors tightened their grip on power. Think about where his head is at: this isn’t governance, it’s dictatorship

But the glitter is an illusion. The pageantry is a cover. His true kryptonite has never changed: the Epstein files. The survivors. The children who became victims. The truth he wants buried deeper than gold. That is what he fears most. And that is why we must make it louder than ever.

On Friday, while the media was distracted with manufactured chaos, one of the most important depositions in modern American history took place — and it happened underground. Behind closed doors. Not in front of cameras. Not in front of the nation. In the basement of Congress. Chaired by James Comer — Trump’s loyal enforcer on the Oversight Committee — designed to control the narrative, to keep the truth hidden.

What came out left more questions than answers. Alex Acosta, the man behind Epstein’s original sweetheart deal, was pressed. He was evasive, slippery, and detached from reality. He brushed off victims’ suffering. He downplayed responsibility. He hid behind excuses.

As Rep. Robert Garcia put it bluntly: “He would not admit it was a sweetheart deal and didn’t claim any responsibility to the Epstein survivors, adding ‘he had no knowledge of what happened to those victims, even to this day.’”

And Rep. Melanie Stansbury reminded the country what is at stake: “Members learned from victims’ attorneys that at least 40 minors gave sworn statements to the FBI as part of the investigation that they had been raped, abused and trafficked.”

This is what they are trying to bury. While they drown us in distractions, this is the crime they are desperate to erase. The abuse. The complicity. The cover-up. And the survivors who still wait for justice.

Here’s the good news: Congressman Ro Khanna has said we do have the 218 votes needed to move forward. That means this fight is not hopeless. It means pressure works. It means when we amplify, when we push, when we refuse to look away, we can crack through the walls they build.

But votes and procedures alone won’t expose the truth. That’s where we come in. This platform. This family. This movement.

I built this space because I was in the rooms where the deals were cut. I was sent to carry out shadow diplomacy for Trump, to move in the shadows, to make sure secrets stayed buried. That’s why I can see the patterns before they hit the headlines. And that’s why I will not stop exposing them now.

This week, we change the conversation. We are not going to let them distract us with Charlie Kirk martyr parades or gold-plated ballrooms. We are going to put the focus back where it belongs: on the biggest cover-up in American history. On the voices of the survivors. On the truth.

Sept. 20

Lev Remembers, Commentary: Trump Halts Patriot Sales — While Russia Escalates, Lev Parnas, right, Sept. 20, 2025. As Trump pretends to be tough on Russia, his actions tell the truth: weapons are stalled, allies are weakened, and Ukraine is left under fire, and the media stays silent.

I’m writing to you today because I’m more deeply worried about what I’m seeing and what my sources are telling me. I want to take you back to that night a few months ago, when I told you about the secret Russian delegation that flew in to meet with the White House. That was the night the plan was hatched — the delay game. Trump and Putin would promise peace, dangle carrots in front of Europe, Ukraine, and the world. Smiles for the cameras, strong words for the headlines. But behind closed doors the deal was simple: stall, divide, and let the war grind on.Subscribed

I told you then — watch their actions, not their words. Because as they talked about peace, as Trump promised weapons, the reality was very different. Twice he stopped deliveries to Ukraine. Once, the shipments were literally pulled back as they were being delivered from Poland. And now, just this week, reports confirm what I’ve been warning you about: the United States has halted sales of Patriot air defense systems and other critical weapons to NATO allies, all under the banner of “America First.”

You don’t see that in bold headlines. What the world sees instead are the soundbites — Trump standing on stage saying, “I am giving Ukraine weapons, I worked out the deal.” That headline flashes across the globe. That’s what people repeat. But where are the headlines about the weapons that never arrive? Where is the media telling you about the pause in sales to Europe, at the very moment Russia escalates its war? They’re nowhere — drowned out, silenced, or too afraid to confront him.

And while Trump played his game, Putin played his. He told the world he was willing to meet Zelensky, that he was ready to talk peace. But as those words came out of his mouth, the bombs only fell harder, the missiles doubled, and the drones never stopped. Every “olive branch” speech from Putin was paired with more graves in Kharkiv, more rubble in Odesa, more fires in Zaporizhzhia. This is not peace. This is psychological warfare, meant to wear down resolve and buy him time to bleed Ukraine dry.

Last night was proof again. Russia launched 40 missiles — cruise and ballistic — and about 580 drones of various types. The strikes pounded Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava, Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy, and Kharkiv. In Dnipro, a missile armed with cluster munitions slammed into an apartment building. Dozens were injured. Three innocent people were killed. Their names will never make it into print here in America, but their families will live with the loss forever.

This is not some distant war. This is a test — a test of whether we will see through the performance and confront the reality. Because if Ukraine falls, Poland and the Baltics are next. And if Europe fractures, if NATO cracks, then one day our children and grandchildren will be the ones standing on the battlefield to fight the war we refused to face.

I’ve been telling you this all along. I was in those rooms. I lived in their world. I know how they think, how they maneuver, and how they lie. Trump talks about strength, but he retreats. Putin talks about peace, but he escalates. Together they put on a show, and too many in the media and politics still fall for the show.

That’s why I write these words. Not to scare you, not to sensationalize, but to tell you the truth — the truth the media is silent about. I don’t have corporate sponsors or billionaires. I have you. And if you believe in freedom, in human dignity, in stopping authoritarian regimes before they reach your doorstep, then I need you to stand with me now.

Call your representatives. Share this letter. Refuse to be silenced. And if you can, support this platform — it’s the only way I can keep doing this work.

Sept. 15 

Lev Remembers, The Last Warning: The Perfect Storm, Lev Parnas,  Sept. 15, 2025. How Trump, Project 2025, and the Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk Are Forging a Super Cult Unlike Anything in History.

I was born into a world where dictatorship was the air people breathed. In the Soviet Union of my childhood, propaganda was law, truth was a crime, and people learned to whisper instead of speak. My parents risked everything to leave that world behind, believing America was the place where freedom lived, where strongmen could never rise, where democracy was not just a word but a shield.

And yet, here we are.

It took America centuries of sacrifice, blood, and courage to reach even the imperfect democracy we had. We’ve never been flawless — corruption lived on both sides, good and evil people wore every color of politics. But there was always the promise of freedom: that you could speak, that you could dissent, that you could question those in power without fear of ruin. That promise is collapsing before our very eyes.

Today, if you speak out, you risk losing your job, being silenced, being arrested. Since when did America stand for that? Since when was truth a crime?

Look at the rights we thought we had secured forever. Women fought for generations to claim control over their own bodies, and yet Roe v. Wade was torn away in an instant — a right stripped from millions by a man who pretends to speak for “freedom.” Immigrants who came here believing in liberty now face detention without due process, as Trump and his machine openly talk about dismantling habeas corpus itself — the very foundation of justice in this country. Voting rights, the sacred key of democracy, are being chipped away, one law at a time, in state after state.

And it does not stop there. Speak the wrong words, and you risk losing your livelihood. Protest the wrong man, and you may find yourself facing prison. Is this the democracy we believed in? Is this America or Russia?

The martyrdom of Charlie Kirk is being weaponized right now as a rallying cry. Trump, as always, is the face on the poster. But the real architects — Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, the Federalist Society, and others you may not know — are the ones drawing the blueprint. They’ve built Project 2025, and as I warned you, they are already putting it in motion. These are not ideas. These are roadmaps. Step-by-step plans to replace democracy with authoritarianism.

And what makes this moment unlike anything we have faced before is the scale of what they are building. Most cults in history have been rooted in one foundation — either religion, or politics, or ideology. Each dangerous, each destructive, but still contained. What Trump and the architects of Project 2025 are constructing is different. It is a tsunami. A once-in-a-lifetime storm where religion, politics, and ideology are bound together into something bigger, darker — a super cult.

And now, with the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk, we are watching them fuse it all into a single weapon. They are using grief as propaganda, using death as fuel, wrapping faith, flag, and fury into one banner. That is what makes this so dangerous. It is not just one side of the culture war. It is every weapon of division, every fear and every false promise, rolled into one machine.

What I have seen take shape in just a few days should worry every one of us. This is not a joke. None of what came before was funny either, but what is playing out right now is something unprecedented. Something designed not just to win elections, but to dominate lives, silence voices, and erase freedoms. If you don’t see the danger now, you will see it when it is too late.

I have been warning you about this. And now, every word is coming true.

Look at the Epstein files. They should have shattered the MAGA cult. They revealed the networks of money, influence, and abuse that Donald Trump was at the center of. But what happened? Instead of accountability, we see the narrative buried, rebranded, weaponized. Epstein’s connections are dismissed as rumor while Trump’s machine reframes the scandal as a distraction — and the martyrdom of Kirk becomes the cover to wipe the cracks clean.

Look at foreign policy. These false conversations about “peace between Russia and Ukraine” — I told you they were theatre. I told you they were lies. Trump and his enablers have never sought peace. They have sought power. Every “deal” has been smoke and mirrors, meant to distract while the world fractures. And now we see Russia moving missiles to Europe’s borders, NATO scrambling, Ukraine bleeding. This is the fruit of those false promises.

As Churchill said, “Appeasement is feeding the crocodile, hoping it will eat you last.” And the crocodile is at our door.

I know these people. I know how they think. I sat in their rooms, I heard their whispers. They are not playing politics. They are building a system designed to outlast you, to outlast your children, to redefine freedom until it means obedience.

This is not about red or blue. This is not about left or right. This is about humanity itself. It takes generations to build truth, but only one lie to shatter it. And lies travel faster than truth ever can.

I am scared. You should be scared too. But fear cannot paralyze us. Fear must move us. Dr. King reminded us, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Silence now is complicity.

So I am not writing this to scare you — though you should be alarmed. I am writing this to open your eyes. Because if we don’t act now, the blueprint will be complete, the damage irreversible.

We must stand together. As Americans. As people. As human beings. The fight is not political — it is moral. It is not about ideology — it is about survival. 

I risk everything to bring you the truth the media won’t touch. But this movement cannot survive without you. I need you to not only read, but act. To not only agree, but unite.

That’s why I’m asking you: don’t just read this — spread it. Share this message far and wide. Tell your friends, your colleagues, your co-workers, your family members. Bring three, four more people into this movement. Become the extension of our voices. Be the megaphone for the Epstein survivors who refuse to be silenced. Be the megaphone for the Ukrainian children kidnapped and torn from their families. Be the megaphone for the people of Ukraine, that the media won’t report on.

We cannot wait for someone else to save us. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. This is our moment to resist, to speak truth, to fight for freedom, and to protect the inheritance of democracy for our children.

Wayne Madsen Report, Resistance Dateline: More truths during a period of state-sponsored lies and propaganda, Wayne Madsen, Sept. 15-16, 2025. As the white supremacist Trump regime milks as much propaganda as possible stemming from the shooting death of far-right podcaster Charlie Kirk in Utah, it should be pointed out that there was no Republican gnashing of teeth or pulling of hair over the assassination of progressive talk radio host Alan Berg in Denver, Colorado on June 18, 1984.

Berg, [photo right] who was Jewish, was assassinated by members of the neo-Nazi terrorist group The Order, which funded its operations by committing armed robberies. The group was also known as Bruders Schweigen (German for Silent Brotherhood).

Just as present-day far-right extremists are compiling lists of those who criticized Kirk's far-right rhetoric, The Order also compiled a lists of its enemies, including a number of prominent Jews. Berg was number two on that list. Others listed included TV producer Norman Lear, David Rockefeller, Baron Elie de Rothschild, and U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice of Tyler, Texas.

The Order had plans to establish a white homeland in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana that would be called the Northwest Territorial Imperative. Their "homeland" was to exclude non-whites and Jews.

Berg's talk radio show was broadcast by 50,000 watt KOA-AM in Denver. It could be received in 30 states. Berg's program became a platform for attacking the far-right, including the fringe movement led by Lyndon LaRouche.

Berg sharp tongue routinely held in contempt all those who called for harm against blacks, Jews, leftists, gays, Hispanics, other minorities groups. During his previous show that aired on KWBZ, where Berg broadcasted prior to KOA, the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan got past rather paltry station security and burst into the studio while Berg was on the air. The Klan leader shouted at Berg, "You’re gonna die. You’d better be careful, because you’re gonna die." Such antics from the far-right are commonplace today with similar threats being made via social media and phone calls.

On the evening of June 18, Berg was returning home from dinner. As he stepped out of his car, Berg was hit with gunfire from an Ingram Mac-10 that had been illegally converted into an automatic weapon. Berg was hit by13 bullets, including five that struck his head. He died instantly. Two members of The Order were convicted on federal charges of murdering Berg.

Two other neo-Nazis in The Order were acquitted of murder but found guilty of federal racketeering charges.

One of Berg's closest friends, Denver attorney David Savitz, told The Colorado Sun in 2024 on the 40th anniversary of Berg's assassination that had he lived, Berg would have said about today's far-right, he "would compare the faces of the Order, the ones who killed him, with the faces in Charlottesville, and the faces on January 6th. He would say they’re all the same. He would be as critical and disgusted with them as one could imagine. He would not hold back in terms of how vile he thought they were.”

Berg was buried in Forest Park, Illinois. Unlike Kirk and his death being marked by a presidential period of mourning, there was no White House order for flags to be flown at half-staff for Berg. Vice President George H. W. Bush did not accompany Berg's remains from Colorado to Illinois aboard Air Force Two. Ronald Reagan, who kicked off his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the location of the heinous June 1964 murders by the KKK of three civil rights workers, chose the Mississippi town as a signal to white southern segregationist that he was their man and not then-President Jimmy Carter from Georgia.

The murder of Charlie Kirk has been likened by many informed observers to the 1930 killing by German Communists of Nazi Brown Shirt street brawler and drifter Horst Wessel. One of the killers, Albrecht Höhler, was arrested for shooting Wessel in the head. Two others found guilty of killing Wessel were Sol Epstein, who was Jewish, and Hans Ziegler, who was described as "Aryan." Sentenced to six years in prison, Höhler was later removed from prison and executed by the Nazis after they took power in 1933. Epstein and Ziegler were later beheaded by the Nazis.

Nazi propaganda mastermind Joseph Goebbels wasted no time in taking full advantage of Wessel's killing in order to turn the 22-year-old Brown Shirt, who led a Brown Shirt unit at a Nazi rally in Nuremberg in 1929, [left] into a Nazi folk hero. Goebbels ensured that the Horst Wessel Song became Germany's co-national anthem. The area of Berlin where Wessel was killed was re-named Horst Wessel-Platz. Other public places, including streets, squares, schools and buildings were named for Wessel.

Friedrichshain, the neighborhood where Wessel lived in Berlin, was re-named Horst Wessel City. The German Navy's tall ship training vessel (now a U.S. Coast Guard training ship) was named the Horst Wessel. Birth records indicate an increase in the name "Horst" by German parents for their male infants. Erika Mann, the daughter of famed German novelist Thomas Mann, wrote: "Nazi school children know Horst Wessel as a heroic, saintly figure of light, a godlike hero hated by the enemies of the Nazis, a man who sacrificed his life in the battle against evil. His song, they are told - and they have not so much as a suspicion that the accuracy of what they are taught is doubtful - is one of the greatest creations of the German spirit. And they sing it lustily."

Ironically, when Wessel's parents moved to Berlin in 1910, they chose to live in the Jüdenstraße district, the old Jewish district that was home to one of Germany's oldest synagogues. Although Wessel's parents were old-school German monarchists, there was no indication that they were anti-Semites. Wessel's father was a Protestant pastor. Wessel's parental story is similar to that of American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell whose parents were vaudevillian performers who counted among their closest friends Groucho Marx, Benny Goodman, and George Burns, who were Jewish.

America should be on guard against any move to lionize Charlie Kirk in the same manner that Goebbels elevated Wessel to Nazi sainthood. Kirk's memorial service is being turned into a major media event before out eyes. Scheduled for Sept. 21, it will be held in the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, home to the Arizona Cardinals NFL team. Kirk's body was transported from Utah to Arizona aboard Air Force Two and was accompanied by Vice President JD Vance and his wife.

Considering the fact that Vance's political career was bankrolled by the Nazi-adjacent gay multi-billionaire Peter Thiel, the democracy movement in the United States and around the world should be on guard against the "Wesselization" of Kirk. An attempt by the far-right in the European Parliament to hold a moment of silence for Kirk was drowned out by raucous boos from members of center and left parties. That standard should be met by all pro-democracy parties, movement, and governments.

There is one major difference between the funerals of Wessel [left] and Kirk. Donald Trump is expected to attend the Kirk service in Glendale, along with Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Although Goebbels, Hermann Göring, Alfred Rosenberg, Brownshirt leader Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, and Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia attended Wessel's funeral, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler did not. Apparently, Nazi official Rudolf Hess and Göring talked Hitler out of attending. They feared that the funeral procession through the heart of Communist-controlled Berlin and the Communist Party headquarters on Bülowplatz could prove dangerous to Hitler. Plans by Goebbels to turn the funeral into a massive Nazi march complete with Nazi regalia were ultimately nixed by President Paul von Hindenburg. There were minor clashes between the Nazis and Communists and some enterprising Communists managed to paint on the wall of the cemetery where Wessel was buried, "To Wessel the pimp, a last Heil Hitler."

And as a farewell to Kirk -- the stoker of hate who mocked President Biden's cancer diagnosis, joked about the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, the shooting of two Democratic Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses, lauded street murderer Kyle Rittenhouse, called for the stoning of gay people, called New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani a "parasite," claimed that DEI was responsible for deadly floods in Texas, and climbed aboard the anti-Covid vaccine bandwagon -- "To Kirk the hatemonger, a last Heil Hitler." Slogan courtesy of the German Communist Party in Berlin in 1930.

Trump's political Svengali, the Goebbels cosplaying Stephen Miller, went on Fox News to spout off following Kirk's death. Miller warned:

"The last message that Charlie Kirk gave me before he joined his creator in heaven was he said that we have to dismantle and take on the radical left organizations in this country that are fomenting violence. And we are going to do that, under President Trump’s leadership. I don’t care how. It could be a RICO charge, a conspiracy charge, conspiracy against the United States, insurrection. But we are going to do what it takes to dismantle the organizations and the entities that are fomenting riots, that are doxxing, that are trying to inspire terrorism, that are committing acts of wanton violence. The power of law enforcement, under President Trump’s leadership, will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and, if you’ve broken the law, to take away your freedom.”

In response to the repeated ad nauseum revenge threats from Miller and his Alzheimer's-ridden boss who's blaming George Soros and "leftists" for Kirk's killing, there is an apt response uttered by Clint Eastwood in "The Outlaw Josey Wales" -- "You gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?"

 

Notable Recent Russia-Ukraine Invasion News 

September

Sept. 6

Lev Remembers, Commentary: “I Love the Smell of Deportation in the Morning,” Lev Parnas, right, Sept. 6, 2025. While Chicago braces, the city is quickly realizing the chilling reality that Trump is about to unleash his so-called Department of War upon them.

Donald Trump has completely lost it. He’s not only planning to go to war with Venezuela—to manufacture a crisis that gives him cover to implement Project 2025 and stay in power forever—but he’s also preparing to go to war with America itself. Plans are on the table to unleash the National Guard on cities like Chicago and Portland. And make no mistake, folks: none of this is about the safety or security of our country. It’s all part of Trump’s authoritarian playbook—an orchestrated campaign of chaos designed for one purpose only: to cement himself in power for good.

My sources tell me this is the week. Plans are being drawn to deploy the National Guard into Chicago—and possibly another city, maybe Portland. And you won’t believe it until you see it with your own eyes: Donald Trump is now using AI-generated propaganda that he blasts out on Truth Social and the White House even reposts. Complete with helicopters, fire, and his chilling line, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.” And now he’s going even further, threatening, “Chicago is about to find out what the Department of War is all about.” This isn’t satire. It’s not a movie trailer. It’s the President of the United States openly fantasizing about turning our cities into war zones. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker called it an “invasion.” Chicago’s Mayor Brandon Johnson said flatly, “Unconstitutional.” And yet, Trump doesn’t care. He’s already renamed the Department of Defense into the Department of War, bragging that America needs a “warrior ethos.” Folks, that isn’t policy—it’s the vocabulary of dictatorship.

But here’s where you have to look deeper.

While the cameras are fixed on Trump threatening to occupy American cities, my sources are telling me the bigger play is brewing south of our border. Preparations are already underway for military strikes against Venezuela.

You’ve heard the drumbeats: warships in the Caribbean, F-35s to Puerto Rico, a $50 million bounty on Nicolás Maduro. He says it’s about gangs and terrorism. But let me tell you what it’s really about: declaring a state of war that gives him cover to do whatever he wants. No oversight. No due process. Eleven men blown up in international waters, no trial, no evidence, just his word—and we’re supposed to accept it.

This is how autocrats seize power. Manufacture chaos at home, declare enemies abroad, and then insist that only one man—the “strongman”—can keep order.

It’s Putin’s playbook. It’s Xi’s playbook. It’s Kim’s playbook. And Donald Trump is begging to be accepted into their club.

Think about what this means.

A president who does nothing to stop Russia’s daily attacks on Ukraine. Who stands silent while Putin kidnaps over 25,000 Ukrainian children. Who laughs nervously as Xi, Putin, Kim, and Modi mock him at their parades. Yet, when it comes to his own people, his own cities, he’s ready to send in troops.

It’s grotesque. It’s un-American. And it’s a warning.

What Trump is preparing isn’t just a deployment. It’s the beginning of a doctrine: Trump versus America. If he can frame Chicago as “the enemy,” then he can frame anyone—any governor, any journalist, any protester, any survivor—as an enemy of the state. And from there, it’s one step to the death of democracy.And if you think that’s shocking, you won’t believe this. While Trump is preparing to send the National Guard into Chicago and preparing for war abroad, he’s also busy turning the White House into his personal Mar-a-Lago My sources tell me that just yesterday, he quietly unveiled a new “Rose Garden Club” — a members-only society with buy-in at a staggering $500,000 a head. Yes, you read that right: half a million dollars just to secure access. Trump has literally transformed the people’s Rose Garden into a private playground for the wealthy elite, just as he did with Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Cocktail parties, whispered deals, donors rubbing shoulders with lobbyists — all from inside the very heart of American democracy. At the unveiling, Trump boasted that the Rose Garden was now “a place where our members can gather with congressmen, senators, and leaders to talk business and make America strong again.” In other words, he’s selling direct access to power—half a million dollars for a seat at the table.

This is more than just a grift. It’s a message. He is not planning on leaving. He’s planting roots in the White House as though it were his personal estate, a gilded club for sale to the highest bidder. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, the great leaders who saw the White House as a sacred trust of the people — they would be turning over in their graves. Trump has reduced it to another cash register, another hustle, another monument to himself. Folks, this is what dictatorship looks like: while the nation burns, Trump uses the Rose Garden to sell access to the White House.

I want to take this moment and talk to you from the heart. I’m not trying to scare you, but I need you to understand just how serious this is. What’s transpiring right now—the planned attacks on Venezuela, the deployment of National Guard troops into American cities, the Rose Garden being turned into a half-million-dollar pay-to-play club—it all points to one thing: Donald Trump is not preparing to leave power. He is preparing to stay in power forever.

And if we don’t stand together now, if we don’t raise our voices now, there will come a day when we wake up and regret that we didn’t do everything we could while we still had the chance. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: everybody can do something.

I want you to remember something about me. I wasn’t always on this side of the fight. I was once deep inside Trump’s circle. I saw firsthand how the deals were made, how the lies were spun, how the money flowed and the corruption spread. I know these people because I lived in their world—and I chose to break free, to speak the truth, to risk everything to expose what I saw.

I can’t change my past, but I can use it to warn you about the future they are building.

My son Aaron is on the frontlines exposing Trump and his inner circle, being attacked by his minions for daring to report the truth. And I’m risking my freedom every single day to bring you information the media won’t touch, stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Why? Because I know these people. I know what they’re about to do. That’s why I’m sounding the alarm—because if we don’t save our democracy now, it may be too late.

That’s why I’m asking you, personally, to stand with me in this fight.

Sept. 1 

Politico, Ukrainian police say Russia linked to murder of former parliament speaker, Veronika Melkozerova, Sept. 1, 2025. Authorities have arrested a suspect in the killing of Andriy Parubiy, a prominent politician who played a major role in Ukraine’s pro-WesternEuromaidan Revolution.

Ukrainian authorities have detained a suspect in the murder of Andriy Parubiy, below left, a senior politician and former parliamentary speaker, and allege there is a Russian link to the killing.

“We know this crime is not accidental. There is a Russian trace in it,” Ivan Vyhivskyi, head of the National Police of Ukraine, said in a statement posted to Facebook on Monday. Vyhivskyi confirmed a suspect was arrested in the Khmelnytskyi region 36 hours after Parubiy’s murder. Ukraine’s general prosecutor’s office said the suspect is a 52-year-old resident of Lviv.

On Saturday — in broad daylight — a gunman disguised as a food delivery worker fired eight bullets at Parubiy in central Kyiv, killing him. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the killer was well-prepared and organized.

Parubiy’s murder is the latest in a string of killings of prominent Ukrainian politicians and activists this year, following the assassinations of former MP Iryna Farion in Lviv and anti-Russian activist Demian Hanul in Odesa.

Parubiy played a major role in leading Ukraine’s pro-Western Euromaidan Revolution in 2013-2014, which ousted the Kremlin puppet regime of Viktor Yanukovych, who is now in exile in Russia. In the winter of 2014, Parubiy served as the commander of protestor self-defense units that clashed with rogue police squads on the streets of Kyiv. He was also one of the top ideologists pushing for Ukraine’s cultural, linguistic and religious exodus from the Kremlin’s sphere of influence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin paints the Euromaidan Revolution as a coup d’état staged by the West and denies the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government. He is also seeking to force Kyiv to fully reinstate the Russian Orthodox church and Russian as a state language in Ukraine as his price for agreeing to a peace deal.

 

The Contrarian, Global Commentary: The Most Communist President Ever, Jennifer Rubin, right, Sept. 1, 2025. How we lose our democracy and our economy. 

Republicans, before the Donald Trump cult took hold, frequently railed (rightly so) against communist and fascist regimes that nationalized industry, indulged in crony capitalism, and substituted propaganda for the free flow of reliable information. (The five-year plan is working!) Well, well. How times have changed.

Sadly, but predictably, rather than reject these practices when they come from the Oval Office, corporate America, like Republicans more generally, has generally gone along with or whistled past the graveyard of capitalism, maintaining the pretense that all is well. Just as the First Amendment is too important to leave to the legacy media, a prosperous economy is too vital to leave to the Intel, Amazon, Space X, and other Wall Street spinners of conventional wisdom.

Consciously or not, Wall Street investors, pundits, and analysts keep alive the pretense of normalcy, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, right, explained:

[M]arkets will remain calm until the illusion of normality becomes unsustainable. At that point market prices may “change violently.” The current technical term for this phenomenon is a “Wile E. Coyote moment” — the moment when the cartoon character, having run several steps off the edge of a cliff, looks down and realizes that there’s nothing supporting him. Only then, according to the laws of cartoon physics, does he fall.

Once a corrupt, dictatorial regime mars their reputations, investors, consumers, employers, and lenders might simply hunker down, put off decisions, and hope the dust settles. That paralysis, which we have already glimpsed in the fallout from tariffs, leads to recession—or, with a Fed untethered to reality and principled economics, to stagflation.

Emptywheel, Analysis: Trump’s Attempt to Repackage His Capitulation in Ukraine, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, right), Sept. 1, 2025. The other day, Axios posted a ridiculous column (with Mike Allen as the first byline) beginning to lay the groundwork for Trump to repackage imminent failure on Ukraine. It starts by allowing senior White House officials anonymously and vaguely blame Europeans for Trump’s failure to craft a deal.

Frustrated Trump aides contend the blame should fall on European allies, not on Trump or even Russian President Vladimir Putin.

All three bases for that blame in the column are ridiculous:

• “White House officials are losing patience with European leaders, whom they claim are pushing Ukraine to hold out for unrealistic territorial concessions by Russia.”
• “U.S. officials believe [Countries besides the UK and France] want the U.S. to bear the full cost of the war, while putting no skin in the game themselves.”
• Europeans aren’t prepared to add sanctions against Russia, even though, “European countries are already working on a new set of sanctions against Russia.”

What appears to have happened is that Mike Allen let a bunch of White House officials make ridiculous claims with no pushback.

Remember: as JD claims he knows better than Russian experts, Tulsi Gabbard, right, is withholding their own intelligence on Russia even from Five Eyes partners. And Tulsi purged the top Russian expert who largely prepared the Alaska meeting over John Ratcliffe’s support by stripping her security clearance.

In the days leading up to President Donald Trump’s Aug. 15 Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, one of the CIA’s senior-most Russia experts worked grueling hours, helping Trump and his team prepare for high-stakes diplomacy over Ukraine and making sure they were adequately briefed, according to a former agency colleague.

Four days later, the CIA officer — whom The Washington Post is not naming for her protection — was at work at the spy agency’s Langley headquarters when she was abruptly ordered to report to the security office. She was informed that her clearance to look at classified material was being stripped. In a span of minutes, her 29-year career in public service was essentially over.

The officer had been expecting an imminent move to Europe to take up a prestigious assignment approved by CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

Instead, she became the latest casualty of a widening cull by Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, fueled at times by far-right activist Laura Loomer, targeting national security professionals whom they deem to have engaged in “politicization or weaponization of intelligence to advance personal, partisan, or non-objective agendas,” according to Gabbard’s Aug. 19 memo announcing the revocation at Trump’s direction of security clearances.

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, left, and President Xi Jinping of China on Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025,  on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, China, in a photo released by Mr. Modi’s office (Photo via Indian Prime Minister's Office and Associated Press).

New York Times, Xi Uses Summit, Parade and History to Flaunt China’s Global Pull, David Pierson, Mujib Mashal and Nataliya Vasilyeva, Sept. 1, 2025 (print ed.). With the leaders of Russia and India visiting, China’s president will show how he can use statecraft, military might and history to push for global influence.

Xi Jinping could hardly have scripted a more favorable moment. This weekend, the leaders of India and Russia joined him at a security summit in China — one leader pushed away by President Trump’s tariffs, the other brought out of isolation by his embrace.

For Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, U.S. tariffs on Indian goods have raised doubts about leaning too heavily on Washington. For President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, his red-carpet treatment in Alaska by Mr. Trump blunted Western efforts to punish him for the invasion of Ukraine.

At the center is Mr. Xi, turning America’s alienation of India into an opportunity, and finding validation for his own long alignment with Mr. Putin.

The summit of more than 20 leaders, mostly from Central Asia, followed by a military parade in Beijing showcasing China’s newest missiles and warplanes, is not just pageantry. It shows how Mr. Xi is trying to turn history, diplomacy and military might into tools for reshaping a global order that has been dominated by the United States.

New York Times, India Was the Economic Alternative to China. Trump Ended That, Alex Travelli and Hari Kumar, Sept. 1, 2025. A lurch in policy has shaken the India-U.S. economic alliance against China, leaving India little choice but to consider reversing its own strategy.

President Trump’s 50 percent tariffs landed like a declaration of economic war on India, undercutting enormous investments made by American companies to hedge their dependency on China.

India’s hard work to present itself to the world as the best alternative to Chinese factories — what business executives and big money financiers have embraced as part of the China Plus One strategy — has been left in tatters.

Now, less than a week since the tariffs took full effect, officials and business leaders in New Delhi, and their American partners, are still trying to make sense of the suddenly altered landscape.

August

Aug. 30

 

Lev Remembers, Global Commentary: Witkoff Exposed — Trump’s Envoy Revealed as Kremlin Pawn, Lev Parnas, right,  Aug. 30, 2025. As Ukraine fights for survival, Trump’s fixer plays theatrics for Putin, trading peace for Russia’s power and money

Last night, Ukraine endured another hellish night. Russia launched one of its largest air assaults in months — 582 drones and missiles raining down from every direction. Entire cities shook. Apartment blocks in Zaporizhzhia collapsed. Children pulled from the rubble. A café burned, homes destroyed, power lines severed. Dnipro and Pavlohrad lit up in flames. Kyiv’s trains delayed by strikes on rail lines. Explosions echoed across 14 regions — west to east.

The Ukrainian Air Force fought like lions, shooting down 548 targets. But still, five missiles and 24 drones hit their mark. Still, families grieve. Still, hundreds of thousands sit in darkness without power, gas, or water.

And while this nightmare unfolds, while innocent civilians are buried under rubble, the media is trying to portray Trump’s “special envoy” Steve Witkoff, right, as incompetent and botching meetings and confusing Moscow’s lies with reality.

But you know who the real Steve Witkoff is, because for months I’ve been telling you — and now the world is beginning to see it too. My sources are telling me that after a meeting in New York between Andriy Yermak, Sergiy Kyslytsya, and Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, the Ukrainians are now more convinced than ever that Witkoff is nothing more than another useful idiot for the Kremlin.

Politico and others report how U.S., Ukrainian, and European officials are all frustrated with him. He refuses to consult experts. He shows up unprepared. He parrots back nonsense after sitting with Putin. One day he believes Russia will give up territory; the next he thinks they agreed to NATO-style security guarantees. It’s chaos — but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s just incompetence.

Let me make it very clear, Witkoff isn’t confused. He’s obsessed. Like Trump, he came up in the real estate world of the 1990s, making money with the same Russian oligarchs who answer directly to the Kremlin. They were both swimming in Moscow’s dirty money long before Ukraine was ever on the headlines.

That’s why I tell you: the real deals aren’t happening in public. They’re not in the leaks you see. They’re not in Witkoff’s babbling reports. The real manipulations are happening behind closed doors with his handler, Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s fixer.

For those of you who have been reading my letters and watching my lives, you already know — you’ve seen these theatrics playing out in real time. From the very first moment they announced that so-called “peace meeting” in Alaska, I told you it was never about peace. It was a distraction. A cover. A way for Trump to shift attention away from the Epstein files, and for Putin to claw back legitimacy on the world stage.

Think back: Trump in the Oval Office, surrounded by EU leaders and President Zelensky, staging the show. Right in the middle of those talks, he “calls Putin,” leaks out tidbits of information, dangles the promise of a meeting between Zelensky and Putin. Then Karoline Leavitt, from the press secretary’s pulpit, doubles down and claims Putin promised talks. But I told you then — it was a mirage. A script. A theater production designed to buy time for Putin and distract the world from Trump’s scandals.

And now, when the show collapses, they blame Witkoff. They tell you he misunderstood, he was confused, he didn’t get the message right. But hear me clearly: there was no misunderstanding. Witkoff didn’t mishear Putin. Trump didn’t misread the room. Putin didn’t misspeak. They all know exactly what the deal is. The only people being misled are the media, and through them, the entire world. This isn’t incompetence — it’s choreography. And it’s being written by Vladimir Putin, played out by his two useful idiots: Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump.

Don’t listen when the media tells you Witkoff is “confused.” That’s the cover story. This isn’t confusion. It’s a deliberate stalling tactic. A distraction. A way to buy time while Russia pounds Ukraine with drones and missiles.

The truth is, Trump, Putin, Witkoff, and their oligarch friends aren’t talking about peace. They’re talking about power, money, cryptocurrency, minerals, and energy. They’re carving up the future like a real estate transaction — with Ukraine as the land deal on the table.

And while they play these games, Ukraine bleeds. Twenty thousand children kidnapped by Russia. Cities like Zaporizhzhia left in ruins. Civilians terrorized night after night.

And yet, in all this darkness, there is hope. What the mainstream media often leaves out is that Ukraine is not just standing still, waiting to be bombed into dust — Ukraine is fighting back. Not against civilians, not against the elderly or children sleeping in their beds like Russia does night after night — but strategically, surgically, where it hurts the Kremlin most.

This week, Ukrainian drones struck deep inside Russia, igniting fires at the Krasnodar oil refinery in the south and the Syzran refinery in Samara — two critical lifelines for Moscow’s war machine. These facilities together process over 11 million tons of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and oil products every year, much of it flowing straight to the Russian army. By hitting them, Ukraine is crippling Russia’s economy, cutting into its ability to fuel tanks, planes, and missiles, and slowly dragging Putin’s regime to its knees.

That’s why these backroom “deals” Trump is pushing through Witkoff matter so much to Moscow. Russia doesn’t want “peace talks.” They want survival. They need Trump to help them claw back international recognition, access to finance, and economic cover. Without it, without the lifeline Trump is dangling before them, they can’t sustain this war for much longer. That’s the truth you won’t hear on CNN or Fox News — but you’ll hear it here.

And while Ukraine strikes Russia where it hurts, thanks to all of you, Oleksandr is delivering aid to the hardest-hit regions. Your contributions are turning into much-needed hygiene supplies — the basic necessities most of us take for granted — carried straight to the front lines, into hospitals, and into bombed-out towns where families have nothing left. People who don’t have running water or electricity, who can’t even take a shower, now have some relief because of you. Thank you.

Lev Remembers, Opinion: Trump Defeated, Putin Wounded, Survivors Rising, Lev Parnas, right, Aug. 30, 2025. This week ends in victory—and September 3rd begins with truth that Trump can’t silence.

My friends, I want to take this moment and finally bring you some good news. I know that most of the time I come to you with the hard truths—the reality others sugarcoat or turn away from. I’ve never done that, and I never will. But this week, for once, ends with real victories. And it reminds us that when we fight together, when we stand up for what’s right, change is possible.

This week, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled that Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs were illegal. Let that sink in. The very same tariffs that crushed working families, raised prices, and handed more power to oligarchs around the world—struck down.

The court made it clear: Trump overstepped, abusing emergency powers in ways the Constitution never allowed. For months, he played dictator with our economy. This ruling is more than a technicality—it’s a reminder that the rule of law still matters, that no man is above it, not even a president. And while the tariffs remain in place temporarily until October 14, the legal precedent is set. Trump lost. America won.

Across the ocean, Ukraine delivered another blow that will echo through Moscow’s walls of power. Ukrainian forces have wiped out over 20% of Russia’s oil refineries. Think about that. Twenty percent of the infrastructure that fuels Putin’s war machine—gone.

This isn’t symbolic. This is strategic, calculated, and devastating. Every refinery destroyed means fewer missiles, fewer tanks, fewer engines of war. Every refinery destroyed deepens Russia’s economic collapse, strangles their ability to continue this illegal invasion, and proves yet again that Ukraine is not backing down. Against all odds, they’re still standing, still fighting, still winning.

And it doesn’t stop there. In Maryland, a federal judge has blocked the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man Trump tried to make an example of in his endless war against immigrants and the courts. Judge Paula Xinis extended the restraining order, keeping him safe here in the United States until at least October, with a hearing already set.

This matters. It’s not just about one man—it’s about the principle that due process, fairness, and humanity cannot be erased, no matter how loudly Trump demands it. It’s another reminder that truth and justice still have defenders in this country.

As Americans prepare to spend this long Labor Day weekend with family and friends, celebrating the dignity of hard work and the freedom to live, let’s not forget what this week showed us. We closed out a week with legal and strategic victories—but the week ahead begins with an even louder one.

Aug. 28 

The Daily Beast, European Leader Calls Trump a ‘Russian Asset,’ Erkki Forster, Aug. 28, 2025. COMRADE-IN-CHIEF. The European president said Donald Trump “functions as an asset,” slamming the president for his stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Portugal’s president has branded President Donald Trump a “Russian asset,” blasting him for his tepid response to Moscow while Ukraine struggles against Russia’s invasion.

Trump has wavered heavily in his public stance on the war that started when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale assault on Ukraine over three years ago.

While Trump has threatened Putin with higher sanctions and “severe consequences” if he presses on with the war, he has declined to follow through, often lashing out at Ukrainian President.

Aug. 27

Emptywheel, Analysis: Devlin Barrett and Mike Schmidt Mistake the Fox in the Henhouse for a Guard Puppy. Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, right), Aug. 27, 2025.

I’m used to Mike Schmidt ignoring Trump’s weaponization of DOJ against his rivals during the first term. I’m used to Devlin Barrett credulously writing down propaganda that right wing law enforcement sources tell him to write down as if it were true.But this, from the two of them, is a remarkable exercise in disinformation in service of a weaponized investigation.

They describe that a fox is in the hen house, but are so ignorant, naive, or corrupt that they describe the fox, instead, as a guard dog.

The factual details the story describes are:

• Kash Patel, below, is investigating his claim that he found burn bags full of classified documents which, he claims, is proof people intended to destroy them (but which sources for the story explain is really dumb because any documents found in a burn bag would be on digital servers too)• Paul Abbate (who was considered a candidate to be Director of FBI after Jim Comey was fired) is a subject of the investigation• Kash put the investigation in WDVA, basing venue on a storage facility there, to avoid DC grand juries• The US Attorney for WDVA, Todd Gilbert, recently resigned shortly after being appointed• John Durham’s lead FBI Agent, Jack Eckenrode, who endorsed Kash to be FBI Director, is conducting interviews in the investigation• “One of the documents investigators have been asking about…was declassified in 2020, while Mr. Trump was in office”

The men describe the Durham Report as Devlin described it in 2023 when he credulously parroted [John] Durham’s claimed findings, without mentioning how badly the report itself undermined Durham’s claims.

Mr. Durham ultimately concluded that the F.B.I.’s work on the Russia investigation suffered from “confirmation bias” against Mr. Trump.

Mr. Durham brought two separate cases to trial on charges that people lied to the F.B.I. in the course of its Russia investigation, but both trials ended in quick acquittals.Such a description was sloppy in 2023 but is inexcusable now, in the wake of the declassification of the classified annex. The classified annex showed that by July 2021, Durham should have concluded that the premise of his entire investigation was based on documents fabricated by Russian spies to frame Hillary.

Here’s the NYT story on that, in case Devlin and NYT Mike have difficulties learning about this.

Once you understand that the classified annex disclosed that John Durham, right, and Jack Eckenrode knowingly spent years investigating Hillary’s people based off a Russian fabrication — literally committing the crime they were investigating — then Kash’s burn bag claim would most immediately implicate Durham and his team, including Eckenrode. Durham went to great lengths to obscure that he had been chasing Russian disinformation, even in his classified annex. Such an effort bespeaks guilty conscience, the kind of guilty conscience that might lead someone to attempt to destroy evidence.

If this were a real investigation, Eckenrode would be a suspect, not the lead investigator.

Worse still, if Kash imagines (or claims to imagine) he’s found new, hard copy versions of what he himself helped declassify in 2020 — documents that included a report about the SVR documents bearing John Ratcliffe’s name (but undoubtedly written with Kash), heavily redacted notes from John Brennan, and a somewhat redacted version of the CIA version of a referral to the FBI — then the steps that Durham’s team (that is, Eckenrode) took to access those documents in 2019 and afterwards would likewise be a central focus of any credible investigation.

Indeed, the apparent fact that Durham — that is, Eckenrode — never presented an FBI version of a September 7, 2016 referral purportedly sent to the FBI, which none of the FBI witnesses remember seeing, would be a central issue in any investigation.

That referral is something that, if it exists in hard copy, if it exists at all, might present new investigative leads.

But also would raise still more questions about the criminal conduct of Eckenrode and Durham — their willing quest to chase disinformation created by Russian spies to frame Hillary Clinton.

And it would raise real questions about whether, after chasing a Russian fabrication for years, Kash’s FBI decided to start fabricating evidence themselves.

This is an investigation led by someone who should be a chief suspect. Such investigations never turn out well.

Aug. 27

Lawfare via Brookings Institute, Armed Conflict Terrorism & Extremism: In Russia, Pardoned Former Convicts Return Home From War, Emily Hoge, Aug. 27, 2025. Russia has promised pardons to former convicts who volunteer in the war. Only eventually, some may return home—bringing violence with them.

Some of Dmitri Malyshev’s acquaintances from the village of Rakhina, near Volgograd, probably first learned that he was home from the war in Ukraine from social media. In September 2024, he posted a picture of himself reclining, with a drink in his hand, wearing sunglasses that showed the reflection of a nearby swimming pool. Malyshev had been wounded at the front—a broken jaw, ruptured ear drum, and some shrapnel in one of his hands—and had therefore been sent home to recover.

“Yes, he [Dmitry Malyshev] returned due to an injury,” the head of the Rakhina rural settlement told v1.ru, a Russian news site for the Volgograd region. “The day before yesterday I saw him in the store and greeted him. As he told me, he will be treated here and will go back to the SVO zone”—that is, the zone of the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Dmitri Malyshev is a cannibal. In 2015, Malyshev was convicted of murdering an acquaintance after the other man propositioned him for sex. Malyshev beat his friend with a crowbar and then filmed himself frying the man’s heart on the stove with onions, eating it, and trying to feed the table scraps to his pet cat. When asked why he had done this, he cheerfully told v1.ru, “You’d have to ask drunk me from ten years ago. I don’t understand drunk Dima either!”

This was not Malyshev’s first murder—he was also charged with a double homicide from 2013. But in May 2024, having served a little under 10 years of his 25-year sentence for murder and cannibalism, Malyshev was released from prison to fight in Russia’s war in Ukraine. Since then, v1.ru has been regularly reporting on his movements—reflecting, perhaps, a certain amount of anxiety about the potential of unexpectedly running into a convicted cannibal at a local store.

After his month in Volgograd last September, Malyshev recovered and was sent back to the front, where he currently fights in the Storm-V prisoner battalion. He is one of thousands of Russian prisoners who have been recruited to fight in Ukraine, where his chances of survival are low. However, Malyshev represents a fundamental problem for the Russian government. At some point, if he gets very lucky, Malyshev, and other prisoner-soldiers like him, could come back to Russia for good. The return of these pardoned former convicts from the front has made the war visible at home—occasionally in the person of a cannibal sitting by the pool.

A range of strategies, including the recruitment of prisoners, has often obscured the war from those in Russia with the most social, economic, and political power. According to a public opinion poll from September 2024, only about 30 percent of Russians know someone directly who has fought in the war in Ukraine, compared to 80 percent of Ukrainians who know someone who has been killed or wounded. The cost of the war is being borne by a small fragment of the Russian population—and that fragment tends to be poorer, less educated, more rural, often not ethnically Russian, and sometimes in possession of a criminal record.

For other Russians—residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg, for example, who have more social capital and whose opposition to the war could pose a problem for the regime—the war is less visible. Its effects are less apparent in daily life, and it is easier for them to simply shut their eyes and ignore it. That is how the Russian government would like it to stay. But, when it comes to the use of prisoners in war, this strategy has sometimes backfired as residents are faced with the return of convicts to their communities.

Russia has tended to rely on its numerical advantage in Ukraine, requiring large numbers of expendable troops. During the most recent offensive, the Russian military attempted to use small groups of mobile Russian troops to try to push through at points along the front where the Ukrainian military is stretched thin. Occasionally they succeed, as they briefly did near the town of Dobropillya, close to the city of Pokrovsk, shortly before the summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska. (The breakthrough near Dobropillya seems to have since been contained.)

These missions are often one-way tickets for Russian soldiers, whose main purpose is to be cannon fodder. As one Ukrainian soldier told El Pais, “It’s like drop after drop of water falling on a stone until it makes a hole.” Or as a Ukrainian officer told RFE/RL, “We keep killing them, and they keep sending them. … It’s like the tactics ants use. They know there’s sugar there, and they all start heading there.” To maintain this approach, the Russian military needs a constant stream of new recruits to replace its losses, soldiers whose lives can be treated cheaply.

But the Russian government has so far tried to avoid a general mobilization. The partial mobilization Putin announced in 2022 led to widespread opposition, with significant protests and a mass exodus of military-aged men from Russia. Since then, the Russian government has employed a program of coercive measures and financial incentives to recruit instead, relying on a supply of vulnerable people to replenish its forces in Ukraine. That has meant using foreign troops, including North Koreans, and offering volunteers large signing bonuses, high monthly salaries, and substantial death payments, which are enticing to Russia’s poor. It has also meant the recruitment of prisoners.

It’s hard to say exactly how many prisoners have been recruited to fight in Ukraine, though the numbers are high. One Russian prisoners’ rights group has estimated at least 150,000 prisoners have been recruited, though some dispute this. 

Aug. 26

The Parnas Perspective, Political Commentary: The Story I Haven’t Fully Told Until Now, Aaron Parnas, right (high-rated blogger and podcast host, and son of Lev Parnas), Aug. 26, 2025. This is a deeply personal story. You don't have to read it if you don't want to. This is going to be a deeply personal post, and I want to begin with honesty. If you don’t want to hear more about me, my life story, and the struggles I’ve faced along the way, I respect that—feel free to scroll past this.

But I’m writing this not for sympathy, not for applause, and certainly not for pity. I’m writing because stories matter. Transparency matters. And who I am—both as a journalist and as a human being—is inseparable from experiences that very few people truly know. I don’t want to exist as just a byline or a job title. I want you to understand the person behind it all.

And here’s the truth: if I expect you to trust me with telling the stories of others—the people whose lives I cover, whose struggles I shed light on—then I have to be willing to share my own. Many people run from their past. I’ve chosen the opposite. My past made me who I am, and it fuels the work I do every single day.

That’s why I am so grateful for this platform. It isn’t controlled by billionaires or corporate executives. It doesn’t bow to advertisers or donors. It only answers to you. If you believe in independent journalism rooted in honesty, please consider subscribing to help keep this work alive.Subscribed

This afternoon, I had the rare chance to stop—really stop. To pause the endless cycle of deadlines, obligations, and constant motion, and instead sit with my memories. I thought not just about the past seven months, but about the past seven years of my life. And when I look back, those seven years feel like decades—years defined by trauma, loss, resilience, and an education that no classroom could provide.

Seven years ago this week, I was 18 years old and walking into law school for the very first time. That alone might sound unusual. What makes it even stranger is that it was the first time I had ever truly left home.

My academic path was anything but normal. I started college at 14, graduating from both high school and college simultaneously at 18. While other kids were navigating dances, football games, and summer jobs, I was sitting in classrooms full of people years older than me—constantly called “Doogie Howser,” expected to perform with a maturity I hadn’t yet grown into.

On paper, it looked extraordinary. In reality, it was isolating. I grew up fast, maybe too fast. I missed the milestones that help young people discover who they are. I had to choose a career before I even had a license to drive. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, to fight for people who couldn’t fight for themselves. But I didn’t truly understand what that meant.

Arriving at law school at 18 was a shock unlike anything else. I was living on my own for the first time, learning how to navigate a city without family, and trying to keep up in classrooms full of peers who weren’t just older, but also more experienced and more confident. The maturity gap was a canyon, and I felt it every single day.

Still, I was proud. I was the first in my family to graduate college and attend law school. But pride had a price tag: $220,000 in student debt. Every time I signed another loan, I felt the chains tighten around my future. Still, I held on to the dream. Standing up in court one day, defending those who had no one else—that vision kept me going.

Then, everything collapsed.

Two years into law school, my father was arrested. Overnight, I wasn’t Aaron anymore. I was “Lev Parnas’ son.” My last name became a headline. My father’s face—and mine—were plastered across televisions and newspapers. My own identity vanished under the weight of his.

I wasn’t his lawyer, but I had to become one in spirit. I spent sleepless nights digging through documents, helping my family process the chaos, all while trying to survive law school myself. Job offers I had worked years for disappeared. The legal community slammed doors in my face—not for what I had done, but because of my last name.

And then came the conviction. My father was sentenced to twenty months in federal prison. Suddenly, I wasn’t just a young law student drowning in debt. I was the emotional and financial backbone of my family. Once again, I had to grow up before I was ready.

The past seven years have left scars—ones I will carry forever. They’ve been filled with trauma, humiliation, and nights where I wondered if I could keep going. But they’ve also taught me resilience. They’ve shown me what it means to rebuild when everything crumbles. They’ve forced me to hold onto my identity even when others tried to erase it.

I don’t share this for pity. I share it because it explains why I approach journalism the way I do. Why truth, accountability, and empathy are not just professional values to me—they’re personal imperatives. I know what it’s like to be defined by a headline. I know the human cost of scandal. And I know how much it matters to tell the full story, not just the convenient one.

That’s why I want to do more than just report news. I want to tell the story behind the story. The story of the person behind the headline. Because people matter. Their pasts matter. Their humanity matters.

That means shining a light where others won’t: on federal employees who were purged by Donald Trump. On the community of Boxtown, Tennessee, suffocating under pollution from Elon Musk’s xAI project. On the hidden histories of members of Congress and world leaders.

I want to put my investigative skills to work in a way that most outlets won’t. I want to dig deeper, ask harder questions, and bring forward the human truth that is too often ignored.

This is the next chapter of my work. And I hope you’ll be part of it.

Aug. 13

New York Times, Russia Is Suspected to Be Behind Breach of Federal Court Filing System, Adam Goldman, Glenn Thrush and Mattathias Schwartz, Aug. 13, 2025 (print ed.). Federal officials are scrambling to assess the damage and address flaws in a sprawling, heavily used computer system long known to have vulnerabilities.

Investigators have uncovered evidence that Russia is at least in part responsible for a recent hack of the computer system that manages federal court documents, including highly sensitive records that might contain information that could reveal sources and people charged with national security crimes, according to several people briefed on the breach.

It is not clear what entity is responsible, whether an arm of Russian intelligence might be behind the intrusion or if other countries were also involved, which some of the people familiar with the matter described as a yearslong effort to infiltrate the system. Some of the searches included midlevel criminal cases in the New York City area and several other jurisdictions, with some cases involving people with Russian and Eastern European surnames.

The disclosure comes as President Trump is expected to meet with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, in Alaska on Friday, where Mr. Trump is planning to discuss his push to end the war in Ukraine.

Administrators with the court system recently informed Justice Department officials, clerks and chief judges in federal courts that “persistent and sophisticated cyber threat actors have recently compromised sealed records,” according to an internal department memo and reviewed by The New York Times. The administrators also advised those officials to quickly remove the most sensitive documents from the system.

“This remains an URGENT MATTER that requires immediate action,” officials wrote, referring to guidance that the Justice Department had issued in early 2021 after the system was first infiltrated.Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Russia? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.

 Aug. 9

New York Times, Trump Says He Will Meet With Putin in Alaska Next Week, Tyler Pager and David E. Sanger, Aug. 9, 2025 (print ed.). Mr. Trump also suggested that a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine would include “some swapping of territories,” signaling that the U.S. may join Russia in trying to compel Ukraine to cede land.

President Trump said he would meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia next Friday in Alaska, as he tries to secure a deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Mr. Trump announced the meeting Friday shortly after he suggested that a peace deal between the two countries could include “some swapping of territories,” signaling that the United States may join Russia in trying to compel Ukraine to permanently cede some of its land.

“We’re going to get some back, and we’re going to get some switched,” Mr. Trump said while hosting the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan for a peace summit at the White House. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both, but we’ll be talking about that either later, or tomorrow.”

The meeting, the first in-person summit between an American and Russian president since President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with Mr. Putin in June 2021, reflects Mr. Trump’s confidence in his ability to persuade Mr. Putin in a face-to-face encounter, a goal that has eluded Mr. Trump and his predecessors. For Mr. Putin, the meeting itself is a victory after he spent the past several months largely isolated from the international community, with NATO leaders — other than Mr. Trump — refusing to communicate directly with him.

The meeting also presents a host of challenges. Ukrainian leaders have adamantly opposed relinquishing any of their land to Russia, and the country’s constitution bars President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine from ceding any territory.

 

The Real Michael Cohen, The Alaska Summit: A Photo-Op Farce, Michael Cohen, right, Aug. 9, 2025. When Trump and Putin negotiate “peace” without Ukraine, it’s not diplomacy; it’s a shameless power grab disguised as a historic moment. Ukraine’s voice? Silenced and sidelined.

People love to say I’m too cynical, even on the weekends. That I see ulterior motives in everything. But after more than a decade working for President Trump, I’ve learned you can’t be cynical enough. If you think he’s doing something for the greater good, you’re not looking closely enough. In fact, you might be in the cult. Which brings us to the traveling circus that is about to set up shop in Alaska: Trump and Vladimir Putin, together again, this time to “negotiate” the end of the war in Ukraine. Sounds noble, right? World peace, high-stakes diplomacy, two great powers coming together to stop the bloodshed. Cue the swelling violins.

Now here’s the reality check: the one person who isn’t invited to this so-called “peace summit” is the actual president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy; the guy whose country has been invaded, bombed daily, and carved up like it’s a real estate deal in Atlantic City circa 1987. You know, the guy whose soldiers are dying every single day on the front lines. The man elected to represent 44 million Ukrainians doesn’t get a seat at his own table. But Trump and Putin do.

Let me decode that for you. This is not a negotiation, it’s a photo-op. A show. A scripted performance in which the ending has already been decided; and not by the people of Ukraine. You see, Trump wants to slap “The Peace President” on a MAGA hat, maybe even pick out a tux for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. He’s thinking about legacy, not liberty. His legacy, not Ukraine’s. He knows the war has become a political liability in the U.S., and he’s betting that if he can “end” it; no matter how, it’ll be the crowning moment of his second term. More than Armenia and Azerbaijan. More than India and Pakistan. A moment he can ride straight into history books, preferably the glossy ones with his face on the cover.

Putin, on the other hand, isn’t flying to Alaska for the scenic glaciers. He’s there for the land he’s already stolen and the land he still wants; the occupied regions of Ukraine, plus the mineral rights, plus whatever other goodies are hiding in the fine print. He’s playing the long game, and for Putin, this meeting is the perfect opportunity to get what he wants without having to give up much of anything; if anything at all. All he has to do is toss Trump enough of a “win” to keep the handshake cameras clicking.

Here’s the dirty little secret about deals like this. They’re only deals for the people making them. Everyone else? They’re props. Ukraine, in this setup, is just a backdrop; a tragic story to be used as leverage in a negotiation they aren’t even allowed to attend. And without Zelenskyy in the room, any agreement reached will be about as legitimate as a diploma from Trump University.

Because let’s be honest: how can the president of Ukraine possibly permit two men with wildly conflicting personal agendas; both of whom have skin in the game that isn’t Ukrainian skin, to decide the fate of his country? He can’t. At least, not without betraying the very people who put him in office. Imagine you’re the CEO of a company under hostile takeover, and two rival executives get together in a boardroom to “solve” the problem without you. You think they’re there for your benefit? Please. They’re there to split the spoils.

This is the oldest trick in the Trump playbook; create the appearance of a monumental achievement while doing the bare minimum, or worse, doing exactly what the other side wanted all along. He’ll call it “historic,” slap it on Truth Social, Fox will blast it 24/7 as the biggest win in world history. And you can count on the fact that most Americans won’t bother to read the fine print that says Ukraine just got sold down the river. And Putin? He’ll go home with the receipts, the resources, and the satisfaction of knowing he manipulated an American president yet again.

We’ve seen this movie before. Think Singapore, 2018; Trump meets Kim Jong-un, proclaims North Korea no longer a nuclear threat, then… surprise! They’re still building nukes. The peace was an illusion, but the optics were fantastic. Trump strutted away claiming victory while nothing changed except the headlines. That’s exactly what Alaska will be; another stage-managed moment designed to make Trump look like a world-class dealmaker while the real costs are paid by someone else.

Now, here’s the bottom line; if the people most affected by a deal aren’t in the room, it’s not diplomacy, it’s theater. And in this theater, Trump and Putin are co-stars, the headliners, each with their own scripts, each angling for their own prize. The tragedy is that Ukraine is the set piece, the war is the plot device, and the lives lost are just collateral to the story they want to tell.

So when Trump inevitably struts out of Alaska, hand extended, grinning for the cameras with Putin by his side, and declares himself the man who ended the war, remember this; real peace isn’t forged in backroom deals between two men chasing their own glory. It’s built with the consent and courage of the people living; and dying, through the fight. Without them, it’s not peace. It’s a cheap reality show finale; two strongmen cutting a dirty deal, high-fiving for the cameras, and calling it the salvation of the free world.

The next big fight; which actor gets to accept the Emmy!

Letters from an American, Historical Commentary: Aug. 8, 2025 [Trump's 'Peace Plan' Promise], Heather Cox Richardson, right, Aug. 9, 2025. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed he could stop Russia’s war on Ukraine with a single phone call. Instead, Matt Murphy and Ned Davies of the BBC report that Russian attacks on Ukraine have doubled since Trump took office.

Today was the deadline the president had announced for Russian president Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire in his illegal invasion of Ukraine or face further sanctions. Instead, Trump announced this afternoon that he intends to meet with Putin on August 15 in Alaska.

Putin generally cannot travel outside Russia because he has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, including the theft of Ukrainian children. And yet Trump is welcoming him to the United States of America.

This welcome gives Putin the huge gift of letting him touch down on U.S. soil after he invaded Ukraine in defiance of the policy established after World War II to prevent another such devastating war. In 1945 the United Nations charter declared that “[a]ll Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” The United States was the key guarantor of this principle until Trump took office.

The U.S. has stood against Russian invasions into Ukraine not only on this general principle, but because of security guarantees the U.S., along with the United Kingdom and Russia, gave to Ukraine in 1994. After the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, Ukraine had the third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. In exchange for Ukraine’s giving up those weapons, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia agreed to secure Ukraine’s borders. In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, they agreed they would not use military force or economic coercion against Ukraine. Russia violated that agreement with its 2014 and 2022 invasions.

Now Trump will welcome Putin to the United States, to territory that once belonged to Russia, reinforcing for Russian nationalists the dream of recreating Russia’s old empire. That dream has been part of the ideology of Russia’s drive to seize Ukrainian land.

Emptywheel, Analysis: How John Durham Buried Evidence He Had Been Doing the Work of Russian Spies … and then Tulsi Gabbard Buried More, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, right), Aug. 9, 2025. There are a lot of pieces of evidence that Durham not only chased a Russian conspiracy theory to frame Hillary Clinton, but did so knowingly.

Most telling is the way Durham, below left, obscured the timeline showing that the draft report he claimed to be chasing was created at least a day after a Russian discussion about creating a Deep State conspiracy theory.

As I’ve been showing, the Durham classified annex goes to significant lengths to hide that a Russian email discussing creating a conspiracy theory about the American Deep State, which he dates to July 26, precedes the draft SVR memo he claims has animated his years-long hunt, which dates to July 27 or later.

You can date the draft SVR memo (Durham doesn’t provide its date at all in the unclassified report, and if he does here, the date has been redacted) by tracking the inputs (red arrows) into the fake emails on which the draft memo is purportedly based (blue arrows), as I lay out here.

Hopium Chronicles, Pro-Democracy Advocacy, I Stand With Ukraine, Europe and Freedom. I Stand Against Putin, Trump, and Authoritarianism, Simon Rosenberg, Aug. 9, 2025. History and the world are watching. Will proud, American patriots stand and fight?

Next Friday, August 15th, Trump and Putin will meet, in Alaska, in the United States of America. Press reports suggest that Trump will in essence take Putin’s side in the war against Ukraine, Europe and what was the West.

It will not be “peace.” It will be appeasement, another extraordinary gift from Trump to Putin, the selling out of our allies (again) and another monumental step in Trump’s ferocious sabotaging of our great nation and the tearing down of the American-led liberal order that our party imagined and built after WWII, an order that has ushered in an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity for America and the people of the world.

It is a day, if it goes as it appears it will go, that will surely live in infamy.

This morning I want to make something as clear as it can be:I stand with Ukraine, Europe and Freedom. I stand against Putin, Trump and Authoritarianism. 

Politico, Former FBI and CIA Director Who Rebuked Trump Dies at 101, Kenneal Patterson, Aug. 9, 2025. William H. Webster, the only person to have ever served as the head of both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and spent his final years condemning President Donald Trump, has died at 101.

The iconic leader, whose career spanned decades,wrote a New York Times op-ed in 2019 calling Trump’s actions a “dire threat to the rule of law in the country I love.”

Webster (shown at right in a file photo) was “a dedicated public servant who spent over 60 years in service to our country, including in the U.S. Navy, as a federal judge, director of the CIA, and his term as our Director from 1978-1987,” according to a statement from the FBI. He served as FBI director under former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

He took on a role as CIA director from 1987 to 1991 under Reagan and former President George H.W. Bush. Webster’s family said that they were “proud of the extraordinary man we had our lives [sic] who spent a lifetime fighting to protect his country and its precious rule of law.”

Webster, born in St. Louis, Missouri, in1924, served as a U.S. Navy lieutenant in both World War II and the Korean War. He also served as a federal prosecutor and spent eight years as a federal judge. “

Every director of the CIA or the FBI should be prepared to resign in the event that he is asked to do something that he knows is wrong,” Webster once said. 

Aug. 8

Lev Remembers, Geo-Political Commentary: Trump–Putin Alaska Summit — With Zelensky and Ukraine on the Menu, Lev Parnas, right, Aug. 8, 2025. From Trump’s nuclear submarine show to Witkoff’s secret dealings with Putin — the inside story of how Alaska became the stage for a plan to carve up Ukraine. 

The Night Ukraine Was Hit From Every Direction: At 8:30 p.m. on August 7, the assault began. From Shatalovo, Kursk, Bryansk, and Primorsko-Akhtarsk in Russia — and from occupied Chauda in Crimea — Russia launched 108 aerial attacks on Ukraine :But 26 drones hit their targets in ten locations, with debris raining down in eight more.

This is what Trump is allowing — no, enabling — to happen. This is what delay looks like. And that delay is not random. It’s calculated.

According to my sources, this was all theatrics choreographed and set in motion by Vladimir Putin himself. With Russia’s economy breaking under pressure, Putin needed a way out that still kept all the territories he’s seized in the meantime.

My sources say Putin personally put together the deal, handed it to Witkoff, had Witkoff deliver it to Trump, and then had Trump send Witkoff to Ukraine — making it appear as if the deal was Trump’s own idea.

And here are some key points of that proposal:

• A temporary truce — not peace — freezing the front lines where they are now.
• Postponing the status of occupied territories for 49 to 99 years, leaving them under Russian control for decades.
• Gradual lifting of U.S. sanctions against Russia — the linchpin that makes the rest of the deal possible.
• Resumption of Russian energy imports to Europe over time — Nord Stream 1 & 2 suddenly back in the conversation.
• No commitments to halt NATO expansion — wasn’t this the whole reason why Putin went to war in the first place?
• No promises to stop military aid to Ukraine — because Trump has already shifted that burden onto Europe.
• My sources tell me this entire sequence — from Trump and Medvedev’s WWIII scare theatrics, to the “urgent” deadline, to a sudden meeting with Putin on U.S. soil in Alaska — was choreographed.

In diplomacy, there’s an old saying: if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. With Trump and Putin meeting in Alaska and Zelensky nowhere in sight, Ukraine is the main course.

The goal? Corner Ukraine into a deal by letting Russia seize as much land as possible before talks. And that land isn’t just territory — it’s mineral-rich ground. Oil. Gas. Rare earth elements. Future leverage. This is about controlling the next century of energy and wealth.

If the EU helps broker such a ceasefire deal now, how could they later oppose Nord Stream’s reactivation? That’s the trap.

Even Rubio seemed out of the loop, telling reporters “we have to study and see.” Meanwhile, Trump was all smiles, saying “everything is moving fast” and Minutes later, Russian officials echoed his words. That’s not coincidence — that’s a direct Trump-Putin channel in action.

If this deal is real, Russia will get rewarded for their aggression and it will cement decades-long occupation and Economic Realignment: Reopening Russian energy flow, shifting the balance of global power.

It will be the most controversial peace overture yet — and it will put the Western alliance at a crossroads between ending the war at any cost and upholding the principles that bound them together.

Trump doesn’t want you to know this. Putin doesn’t want you to know this. They’re counting on backroom deals, manufactured deadlines, and a media distracted by circus headlines.Subscribed

That’s why I’m here, Speaking Truth To Power.

Aug 6

Lawfare, From Russian Interference to Revisionist Innuendo: What the Gabbard Files Actually Say, Renee DiResta (right, an Associate Research Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown and a contributing editor at Lawfare), Aug. 6, 2025. Tulsi Gabbard’s latest “revelations” are being spun as proof of a deep state conspiracy. The documents themselves tell a much duller story.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, right, has recently released a series of declassified documents she claims expose a “treasonous conspiracy” by former President Barack Obama and his top intelligence officials to sabotage Donald Trump.

Gabbard’s performance—part of an ongoing effort by the Trump administration to retcon “Russiagate”—led to an announcement yesterday by Attorney General Pam Bondi assigning an as-yet-unknown federal prosecutor to convene a grand jury investigation into President Obama and others.

Before diving into the barrage of documents Gabbard, right, declassified, and the allegations they don’t substantiate, we thought it would be useful to briefly cover the history she’s trying to rewrite. Because one of the clearest refutations of her claim that President Obama engaged in an “years-long coup” against Trump is simple: linear time.

Revisiting the History of 2016 Russian Interference and Its Aftermath

Russia interfered in the 2016 election in three distinct ways: First, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), also known as the “troll factory,” ran a disinformation campaign using fake social media accounts with content that reached more than 100 million people. The propaganda content surrounding the election aimed to depress the Black and liberal vote on the left, while promoting Trump on the right. During the Republican primary, following a brief effort to boost Rand Paul, they pivoted to Trump, denigrating primary opponents such as Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Contrary to the talking point that it was just "$150k in Facebook ads," the IRA’s broader influence campaign cost around $10 million per year. It ultimately became the subject of a Department of Justice indictment against the IRA, its parent company, and individual operatives.

Aug. 5

The Atlantic Daily, Commentary: What, Exactly, Is the ‘Russia Hoax’? David A. Graham, Aug. 5, 2025. To start with, it’s not a hoax.

One of Donald Trump’s tells is his talk of the “Russia hoax.” When that phrase passes his lips, it’s a sign that the president is agitated about something.

In the past two weeks, for example, as questions about the administration’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein have dominated headlines, Trump has been talking often about “the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, and many other hoaxes too,” as he put it in an interview with Newsmax on Friday. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, also released documents last week that her office said shed new light on this “Russia hoax.” Attorney General Pam Bondi has reportedly ordered a grand-jury investigation into claims that Obama-administration officials broke laws while investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

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The DNI’s office doesn’t explain exactly what the “Russia hoax” is, and for good reason. First, although the phrase has achieved talismanic status in Trump world, it has no set definition, because Trump keeps changing the meaning. Second, and more important, it’s not a hoax.

Here’s what is not in dispute: The United States intelligence community concluded that Russia sought to meddle in the 2016 election and, according to a GOP-led Senate investigation, wanted to help Trump.

As Special Counsel Robert Mueller wrote in a report summarizing his findings, “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and his campaign chair Paul Manafort met at Trump Tower in June 2016 with Russians who they believed would hand over “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. (Steve Bannon—Steve Bannon!—called the meeting “treasonous.”) A Trump 2016-campaign aide boasted to an Australian diplomat that Russia was trying to help the Trump campaign, and then lied about his Russian contacts to FBI agents. Trump publicly called on Russia to hack Clinton’s emails in July 2016—jokingly, he has since said—and Russian agents attempted to do so that very day, according to the Justice Department. Hackers who the U.S. government believes were connected to Russia obtained emails from a number of Democratic Party officials and leaked them publicly, and Trump pal Roger Stone was apparently forewarned about some. Major tech companies, including Facebook and Twitter (now X), also confirmed that they had detected dubious Russian activity.

In spite of all of this evidence, or perhaps because of it, Trump has loudly insisted that it’s all a hoax. He’s used the phrase off and on since spring 2017, though he’s changed what he means. For a time, he made the claim—without evidence then, and without any since—that the federal government under Barack Obama had wiretapped or improperly surveilled him. At other times, he has claimed that the whole thing is a “witch hunt.” Often, he generically used the term hoax to refer to any allegations about Russian involvement in the 2016 election. He even sued the Pulitzer Prize Board over a statement honoring reporting on connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. (The case is ongoing.)

His attempts to instill doubt have been assisted by the fact that some of the wilder rumors and reports concerning his campaign didn’t turn out to be true. Carter Page, a Trump campaign adviser, was a bit of an eccentric character but not a traitor, as some suggested, much less the key to unraveling any grand conspiracy. Trump was probably not communicating with a Russian bank via a mysterious server. He was almost certainly not a longtime Russian-intelligence asset. The so-called Steele dossier was full of falsehoods. I argued at the time that BuzzFeed’s decision to publish it was a grievous error, and it warped conversation about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

Mueller’s highly anticipated investigation also landed with a big thud. First, expectations for his report had been inflated by an overeager circle of Trump critics who had expected shocking new revelations; the revelations were indeed shocking, but by the time Mueller published them, most had already filtered out in press accounts. Second, debate over Trump’s ties to Russia had focused on “collusion,” which is not a specific crime. This produced a semantic sideshow argument in which Trump insisted that he couldn’t have colluded, because he wasn’t charged with it. Third, Attorney General Bill Barr misrepresented Mueller’s findings. Fourth, Mueller did not recommend charges against Trump, thanks to Justice Department guidance against charging a sitting president, which meant that although the special counsel produced an unmistakable implicit accusation, Trump claimed vindication.

Trump’s use of pardons may have induced some of his confederates—including Stone and Manafort—to not cooperate with prosecutors, or to only partly cooperate, thus depriving the public of a chance at receiving a full accounting. This was a kind of legalized obstruction of justice.

Plenty of authorities have pointed out that Trump’s claim of a hoax is nonsense. In 2017, PolitiFact named that its lie of the year. In 2018, The Washington Post reported: “Trump’s Russia ‘Hoax’ Turns Out to Be Real.” In 2019, a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general concluded that, as my colleague Adam Serwer put it, “the ‘Russia hoax’ defense is itself a hoax, and a highly successful one, aimed at reassuring Trump supporters who might otherwise be troubled by the president’s behavior.” Still, the idea that the whole thing was a chimera has taken hold even within some precincts of the mainstream press, where the whole thing is treated as a weird passing obsession. The journalist Ben Smith, who made the decision to publish the Steele dossier, now contends, vaguely and in passive voice, that “Trump was in retrospect treated unfairly.”

Meanwhile, Trump world continues to cook up new iterations of the hoax claim. The most recent ones are driven by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who has a history of weaponizing intelligence, to use a term he’s a fan of, and Gabbard, who has for years repeated Kremlin talking points. Last month, Ratcliffe alleged that in 2016, three of the nation’s top intelligence officials “manipulated intelligence and silenced career professionals—all to get Trump,” but as my colleague Shane Harris reported, he didn’t have evidence to back that up. Gabbard has released a dribble of documents intended to bolster it, but still nothing that matches the claims.

In recent days, MAGA allies have pushed a new and shocking allegation: that emails show Clinton actually approved a plan to smear Trump by claiming he was colluding with Russia. The problem is that, once again, investigations have debunked it. A special counsel appointed by Barr during Trump’s first term, with the goal of ferreting out political skulduggery in the Russia investigation, found that messages about Clinton being treated as a smoking gun were, in fact, likely concocted by the Russians. As The New York Times reported, “The special counsel, John H. Durham, went to great lengths to try to prove that several of the emails were real, only to ultimately conclude otherwise.”

Durham’s finding of a Russian forgery is ironic: Someone has finally turned up a real Russia hoax. Rather than working to fight it, however, Trump’s aides are once more colluding with Russia to mislead the American people and further Trump’s political fortunes.  

Aug. 4

Emptywheel, Analysis: Donald Trump's Parallel Ghislaine Maxwell and Vladimir Putin Problems, Emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler, right), Aug. 4, 2025. As Trump attempts to look strong in the face of Vladimir Putin's intransigence on Ukraine, consider the twin pillars of compromise Putin has on him.

There was a fake story circulating the Intertoobz that in some kind of Turkish broadcast, Dmitry Medvedev said: “Trump should not think that the video archive of his past immoralities is only in the hands of Mossad.”

The fake, as good fakes do, plays on something real about the moment, even while confirming what people want to be true.

After, earlier in the summer, giving Putin the time he wanted to finish whatever he wants in Ukraine, Trump has reversed course, sort of. He has been trying to stop Putin from doing what Putin was going to do anyway, wagging but not imposing sanctions. Five days ago, Trump declared he was imposing a ten day deadline on Putin or else he will stop the car (just like Dad used to threaten on long roadtrips).

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Russia must agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine by Aug. 8 or risk sanctions, accelerating a deadline that was previously up in the air.

Trump in July set a 50-day deadline for the agreement with Ukraine, threatening tariffs if a deal was not made. On Monday, during his meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, he said he was shortening this deadline to “10 or 12 days.”

Aboard Air Force One on Tuesday, on his way back to the United States, Trump said the clock was ticking and it was “10 days from today.”

“And then we’re going to put on tariffs,” Trump added, “and I don’t know if it’s going to affect Russia, because he wants to, obviously, probably keep the war going.”

The president has flipped on his views on the war in Ukraine throughout his second administration, recently expressing he is “disappointed” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He said Tuesday he has not yet heard from Russia about the new timeline.

In response, Real Medvedev trolled Trump on Xitter, likening him to Joe Biden. Then Trump — still targeting Medvedev — claimed he was sending out his nukes.

Based on the highly provocative statements of the Former President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that. Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances. Thank you for your attention to this matter!Trump got the reaction his tweets alway get from Pavlov’s press corps, a slew of headlines treating this as true and meaningful.

Russian experts, however, mostly noted Russia yawning.

Could this be the first time in history a social media spat triggers nuclear escalation?

President Donald Trump, offended by posts by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, says he’s ordered two nuclear submarines to move closer to Russia.

So, how will Moscow respond? Are we on a path to a nuclear standoff between America and Russia? An internet-age version of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis?

I doubt it, judging by initial reaction in Russia.

Russian news outlets have been rather dismissive of Trump’s announcement.

Speaking to the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, a military commentator concluded that Trump was “throwing a temper tantrum”.

A retired lieutenant-general told Kommersant that the US president’s talk of submarines was “meaningless blather. It’s how he gets his kicks”.

Then Putin — not Medvedev — made it known that Trump has misunderstood the scope of Putin’s ambition.

“All disappointments arise from inflated expectations,” Putin said, in an apparent reference to Trump’s “disappointment” with the Russian leader for not bringing an end to the war.

[snip]

Speaking on Friday at the Valaam Monastery on an island in north-western Russia, Putin said he expected negotiations with Ukraine to continue, adding that he viewed “negotiations positively”.

But in a veiled reference to growing pressure from Ukraine and its Western allies to agree to a long-term ceasefire, he said: “As for any disappointments on the part of anyone, all disappointments arise from inflated expectations.

Both Putin and Medvedev are making Trump look weak — or rather exposing that he is weak.

My guess is they have good reason to know Trump’s is scared of exercising any real leverage over Putin, and for reasons that go well beyond any similarity to “Sleepy Joe.”This fake Medvedev interview plays into that, suggesting that Russia has leverage because they have the Epstein files.

The claim is not remotely outlandish. Craig Ungar has been focusing on the Russian aspects of Epstein’s past, including Svetlana Pozhidaeva, the woman trained as Russia trains its spies, who opened a modeling agency and then got a bunch of funding from Epstein to fund other things, as well as Masha Drokova, the pro-Russian activist who first served as Epstein’s publicist and then infiltrated Silicon Valley. More important, perhaps (since this is a fake Medvedev speech), is John Dougan, who was a West Palm Beach cop before he became — and still is — a Russian disinformation operative, one who overtly crafted anti-Harris disinformation in last year’s election.

His story begins in 2005 when Palm Beach authorities began investigating Epstein’s sex crimes. That meant the Epstein case had entered the court system, which in turn meant that his computers and videos became evidence, and new people—detectives, police, lawyers, and the like— suddenly had access to his secrets.

 

Politico, Russia targeting voters across EU, Moldova warns, Gabriel Gavin, Aug. 4, 2025. Moscow is hoping pro-European Moldovans living abroad don’t go out to vote in September’s elections, the country’s national security chief told Politico.

Russia is ramping up efforts to influence Moldovans living abroad across Europe to try to sway critical elections next month, the EU candidate country’s security chief has warned.

National Security Adviser Stanislav Secrieru told Politico that officials have seen a sharp uptick in disinformation aimed at the almost quarter of a million voters in the diaspora, ahead of the vote in September, where the pro-Western government faces a crucial test.

“Russia and its proxies are now actively focusing their efforts on the Moldovan diaspora,” Secrieru said, pointing to a renewed blitz from a Kremlin-backed network known as Matryoshka. The tactics include creating copycat fake outlets and using them to disseminate false reports.

“The campaign is designed to demobilize diaspora voters — encouraging them to stay home — and to manipulate those who do vote into supporting a fake pro-EU force. Disguised to imitate the look and tone of legitimate European media outlets, these fabricated reports aim to erode trust in Moldova’s democratic institutions and sow confusion among Moldovan communities abroad,” he added.

Moldova’s sizable population living outside the country overwhelmingly voted in favor of its liberal president, Maia Sandu, right, in an election last year that was marred by allegations of Russian interference.

A simultaneous referendum on the country’s EU membership bid narrowly passed because of ballots cast by post and at polling stations set up in other European cities. Moscow targeted that vote, Secrieru told POLITICO at the time, through a sophisticated scheme offering voters cash for backing pro-Russian opposition parties. 

Aug. 3

New York Times, ‘Clinton Plan’ Emails Were Likely Made by Russian Spies, Declassified Report Shows, Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman, Aug. 1, 2025 (print ed.). An annex to a report by the special counsel John H. Durham was the latest in a series of disclosures about the Russia inquiry, as the Trump team seeks to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The Trump-era special counsel who scoured the Russia investigation for wrongdoing gathered evidence that undermines a theory pushed by some Republicans that Hillary Clinton’s campaign conspired to frame Donald J. Trump for colluding with Moscow in the 2016 election, information declassified on Thursday shows.

The information, a 29-page annex to the special counsel’s 2023 report, reveals that a foundational document for that theory was most likely stitched together by Russian spies. The document is a purported email from July 27, 2016, that said Mrs. Clinton had approved a campaign proposal to tie Mr. Trump to Russia to distract from the scandal over her use of a private email server.DECLASSIFIED REPORTSRead the report about emails likely faked by Russian spies.

The release of the annex adds new details to the public’s understanding of a complex trove of 2016 Russian intelligence reports analyzing purported emails that Russian hackers stole from Americans. It also shows how the special counsel, John H. Durham, went to great lengths to try to prove that several of the emails were real, only to ultimately conclude otherwise.

The declassification is the latest disclosure in recent weeks concerning the Russia investigation. The wave has come as the administration is seeking to change the subject from its broken promise to release files related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Even as the releases shed more light on a seismic political period nearly a decade ago, Mr. Trump and his allies have wildly overstated what the documents show, accusing former President Barack Obama of “treason.”

The release of the annex was no exception. John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, said in a statement that the materials proved that suspicions of Russian collusion stemmed from “a coordinated plan to prevent and destroy Donald Trump’s presidency.”

And Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, who has a long history of pushing false claims about the Russia investigation, declared on social media that the annex revealed “evidence that the Clinton campaign plotted to frame President Trump and fabricate the Russia collusion hoax.”

In reality, the annex shows the opposite, indicating that a key piece of supposed evidence for the claim that Mrs. Clinton approved a plan to tie Mr. Trump to Russia is not credible: Mr. Durham concluded that the email from July 27, 2016, and a related one dated two days earlier were probably manufactured.Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Russia? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.

Ahead of the 2020 election, Mr. Ratcliffe, as director of national intelligence in Mr. Trump’s first term, had declassified and released the crux of the July 27 email, even though he acknowledged doubts about its credibility. Officials did “not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication,” he said.

Among some Trump supporters, the message became known as the “Clinton Plan intelligence,” as Mr. Durham put it in his final report.

In his report, Mr. Durham, left, used the U.S. government’s knowledge of the supposed plan, via the Russian memos, to criticize F.B.I. officials involved in the Russia investigation for not being more skeptical when they later received a copy of the Steele dossier and used it to obtain a wiretap order. The dossier, a compendium of Trump-Russia claims compiled by a former British spy, stemmed from a Democratic opposition research effort and was later discredited.

“Whether or not the Clinton Plan intelligence was based on reliable or unreliable information, or was ultimately true or false,” Mr. Durham wrote, agents should have been more cautious when approaching material that appeared to have partisan origins.

Mr. Durham’s report also mentioned that Mrs. Clinton and others in the campaign dismissed the allegation as ridiculous, positing that it was Russian disinformation. But Mr. Durham banished to the annex concrete details he had found that bolstered her campaign’s rebuttal, burying until now the conclusion that the email he called the “Clinton Plan intelligence” was almost certainly a product of Russian disinformation.

The annex shows that the person who supposedly sent the July 27 email, Leonard Benardo of the Open Society Foundations network, told Mr. Durham in 2021 that he had never seen the message and did not write it. The network is the philanthropic arm of the liberal financier George Soros, who has been made out to be a villain by Russian state media and by some American conservatives.

The annex also cited a purported email from July 25, 2016, also attributed to Mr. Benardo. Referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the message claimed that a Clinton adviser was proposing a plan “to demonize Putin and Trump,” adding, “Later the F.B.I. will put more oil into the fire.”

That message identified the adviser as “Julie,” while the July 27 one said “Julia.” An accompanying Russian intelligence memo identified the aide as Julianne Smith, a foreign policy adviser for the Clinton campaign who worked at the Center for a New American Security.

But the trove of Russian files contained two different versions of the July 25 message — one that somehow had an additional sentence. And Mr. Benardo denied sending it, telling Mr. Durham’s team that he did not know who “Julie” was and would not use a phrase like “pour more oil into the fire.”

Ms. Smith informed Mr. Durham in 2021 that she had no memory of proposing anything to campaign leadership about attacking Mr. Trump over Russia, although she “recalled conversations with others in the campaign expressing their genuine concerns that the D.N.C. hack was a threat to the electoral system, and that Trump and his advisers appeared to have troubling ties to Russia.”

The annex also shows that Mr. Durham obtained emails from several liberal-leaning think tanks mentioned in the Russian memos and did not find copies of the messages supposedly written by Mr. Benardo. The think tanks included the Open Society Foundations, the Atlantic Council, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Center for a New American Security.

But Mr. Durham found other “emails, attachments and documents that contain language and references with the exact same or similar verbiage” to those messages. Those included a July 25 email by a Carnegie Endowment cyberexpert that contained an extensive passage about Russian hacking that was echoed, verbatim, in the purported July 25 message attributed to Mr. Benardo.

Mr. Durham also obtained text messages from Ms. Smith on July 25 showing that she had unsuccessfully tried to determine whether the F.B.I. had opened an investigation into the Democratic National Committee breach, although they did not mention Mr. Trump. And he obtained a July 27 email from Ms. Smith asking her colleagues at the think tank to sign a bipartisan statement criticizing Mr. Trump’s denunciations of the NATO alliance as reckless and too friendly to Russia.

Mr. Durham wrote that it would have been logical for someone to conclude that she played a role in efforts by the Clinton campaign to tie Mr. Trump to Russia. Her July 25 texts and July 27 email could be seen as support for the idea that such a plan existed, he added.

But ultimately, in weighing all the evidence, Mr. Durham concluded that the Russians had probably faked the key emails, the annex shows.

“The office’s best assessment is that the July 25 and July 27 emails that purport to be from Benardo were ultimately a composite of several emails that were obtained through Russian intelligence hacking of the U.S.-based think tanks, including the Open Society Foundations, the Carnegie Endowment and others,” it says.

The Russian intelligence memos first came to public attention in 2017 after The New York Times and The Washington Post explored a decision by James B. Comey Jr., the former F.B.I. director, to violate Justice Department procedure. In publicly addressing the investigation into Mrs. Clinton, he sharply criticized her use of a private email server but said no charges could be brought over it.

Mr. Comey later told Congress and an inspector general that he decided to be the face of the decision, rather than allowing Justice Department officials to do so, as is typical, in part because of something in the Russian memos. A Dutch spy agency had hacked the memos from a Russian spy agency’s server in 2016 and gave copies to the U.S. government.

Two of the memos described purported communications in January 2016 and March 2016 involving a top Democratic Party leader, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, one with Mr. Benardo and the other with a different official at the Open Society Foundations. The memos indicated that the attorney general at the time, Loretta E. Lynch, was pressuring the F.B.I. about the email inquiry and sharing confidential information about it with the Clinton campaign.

But Mr. Comey and other officials also said they believed that the memos described fake emails, in part because the January one also said that Mr. Comey himself was trying to help Republicans win the election. In 2017, Mr. Benardo and Ms. Wasserman Schultz said that they had never even met, let alone communicated about Mrs. Clinton’s emails.

The Trump administration has also declassified and released a report by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee that summarized unflattering claims about Mrs. Clinton from the Russian memos without flagging suspicions that the trove contained misinformation.

After the special counsel investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, Robert S. Mueller III, issued his final report, the attorney general at the time, William P. Barr, assigned Mr. Durham to hunt for evidence proving Mr. Trump’s conspiracy theory that the investigation had stemmed from a deep-state plot against him.

In 2020, as The New York Times has reported, after Mr. Durham failed to find evidence of intelligence abuses, he shifted to instead trying to find a basis to blame the Clinton campaign for the fact that Mr. Trump’s campaign had come under suspicion of colluding with Russia.

Mr. Durham was never able to prove any Clinton campaign conspiracy to frame Mr. Trump by spreading information that it knew to be false about his ties to Russia, but he nevertheless used court filings and his final report to insinuate such suspicions. He brought charges of false statements against two people involved in outside efforts to scrutinize possible ties between Mr. Trump and Russia, both of which ended in quick acquittals