Spygate, Part #10: Kimberlin and the Chalupas

Ukraine played an important role in the 2016 United States presidential election, and within that midst, there were two people assisting the premise: Alexandra and Andrea Chalupa. Their experience developed during their work on Digital Maidan assisted with this..

While Sean Hannity is not the Attorney General of the United States, we will discuss Ukraine’s hand in the United States presidential election of 2016.

For this article, it is recommended that you read “Foreign Intelligence” and “The Deputies Meetings”.

It is also recommended that you have a basic understanding — like I do — of what I call the “Blogger Civil War” which occurred while Andrew Breitbart was still around, and what Lee Stranahan picked up afterwards (because Stranahan was an active participant of it from the Breitbart side).

Alexandra and Andrea Chalupa

The two sisters, Alexandra and Andrea Chalupa (not Irene),

Andrea is on the board at Orwell Art and the author of the book “Orwell and the Refugees: The Untold Story of Animal Farm”, which was written with Olexji Keis, with David Rainbow, Tanya Chalupa and Marshall Comins as editors.

In 1998, Alexandra Chalupa gained employment at the Office of Public Liaison as an intern in the White House.

In 2004, Alexandra was hired as a staffer / consultant at the Democratic National Committee. She also became affiliated with the Democratic Heritage Council much later.

In 2014, the U.S. United With Ukraine Coalition was founded by Alexandra Chalupa.

On January 3, 2014, President Barack Obama’s national security staff met with Julian Kulas, Andrew Fedynsky, Ulana Mazurkevich and Alexandra, where they discussed relations between the United States and Ukraine. Other attendees at the time included Allison Jarus and Dr. James Zogby.

The same month, Andrea Chalupa retweeted information being generated from journalists in Kiev, Ukraine, who witnessed the events of the Ukrainian Revolution unfold. After people questioned the protesters’ intent, Andrea and a friend launched Digital Maidan from New York on January 24, 2014, where the two wrote Twitter messages which could then be used by any Twitter user to form an army of Maidan activists.

Through this method, three different Twitter “storms” occurred — January 20, January 27 and January 30 — which pushed for a viral assault on President Viktor Yanukovych and support for the Euro-Maidan protests in Kyiv. These efforts were bolstered with assistance from Alexandra, Lara Chelak, Constantin Kostenko, Terrell J. Starr and many others. This led to 11.6 million Twitter messages being generated within its first week.

Around this time, while doing pro bono work for a client, Alexandra started to investigate Paul Manafort’s connections to President Yanukovych’s Administration.

On January 31, 2014, Hanna Kozlowska published the article “From Brooklyn to Kiev, How #DigitalMaidan Went Viral” in Foreign Policy.

On February 3, 2014, a Euro-Maidan protest was held in New York with people waving the Ukrainian flag, where Wladimir Klitschko arrived and spoke at the scene. The event was organised by the Atlantic Council’s Adrian Karatnycky, and was attended by Andrea, who urged people to become Maidan activists through Twitter.

On February 4, 2014, a conversation between Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt was leaked onto YouTube, where they discussed regime change in Ukraine — President Viktor Yanukovych for Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Towards the end of the month, on February 22, 2014, President Yanukovych was dismissed from office after a vote was held by the Ukrainian Parliament, which was followed by an additional vote to release Yulia Tymoshenko from prison. The same day, Ambassador Pyatt tweeted: “A day for the history books”.

Two days later, on February 24, 2014, Arseniy Yatsenyuk was appointed the Prime Minister of Ukraine.

On March 24, 2014, the U.S. United With Ukraine Coalition sent a joint letter to Senator Harry Reid, Senator Mitch McConnell, Speaker John Boehner and Representative Nancy Pelosi to request assistance with Ukraine. Prior to the letter being sent, Alexandra sent an e-mail to Ukrainians For Obama-Biden to confirm the final signatories, as she had pushed for the signatories.

On April 22, 2014, Vice President Joe Biden met with Prime Minister Yatsenyuk where he delivered a statement about Russia, the annexation of Crimea, and a pledge of support behind Ukraine in the dispute. Vice President Biden also pledged $50 million in American aid to end Ukraine’s dependency on Russian energy supplies.

On May 29, 2014, Alexandra Chalupa attended the 10th Annual Gala hosted by the Hungarian American Coalition at the House of Sweden.

The next month, on June 18, 2014, Alexandra was a panellist at the Arab American Institute with Dr. Zogby, Barbara Anderson, Kamal Essaheb and Billy Lawless.

On June 25, 2014, Andrea filed for the trademark of DigitalMaidan, although this would eventually be abandoned as there would be no response to further requests for information.

The Twitter “storms” continued until July 2014, with some of it focused on attacking FIFA for its decision to allow Russia to host the World Cup, and pushed for boycotts of both Lukoil and Exxon Mobil.

On October 26, 2014, Mayor Vincent Gray, Mary Cheh, Sally Gresham and Alexandra Chalupa attended the opening of Forest Hills Playground.

On November 15, 2014, Digital Maidan sponsored the Global Maidan Conference, which was held in honour for the 1-year anniversary of EuroMaidan. Other organisations which sponsored the event included Razom For Ukraine, Vann Alexandria, EuroMaidanPress, Babylon 13 and Ukrainian Museum.

In 2015, Andrea Chalupa was named one of the Aspen Ideas Festival Scholars.

In March 2015, Andrea met with Damian Kolodiy, Mouaz Moustafa and Michael Weiss during a conference.

On March 9, 2015, Andrea published the article “Want to Understand President Obama’s Foreign Policy?”, where she mentioned an event which would be hosted on March 14 featuring Michael Weiss, Mouaz Moustafa and Damian Kolody at the Ukrainian Museum of New York.

On March 13, 2015, Andrea posted a message on Facebook, where she discussed the recent silence of Twitter trolls apparently paid by the Kremlin / Russian Government, which was noted by Michael Weiss.

On March 15, 2015, Andrea published the article “Kremlin’s Troll Army Is Quiet: Sign of a Coup?” in The Huffington Post.

On April 10, 2015, Alexandra published the article “Girl Scout troop honors Ukraine at World Thinking Day” in The Ukrainian Weekly.

On June 2, 2015, Alexandra participated in a briefing with Dr. Zogby, Barbara Anderson, Maya Berry, Billy Lawless and Samba Mamadou as part of the the White House Ethnic Day held at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Another attendee of the event was Celeste Wallander.

On June 13, 2015, Andrea published the article “Crimean Gangland: Putin’s Seaside Mafia State” in The Daily Beast.

On November 10, 2015, the Ethnic Dems tweeted: “NDECC Co-Convener @AlexandraChalup begins her presentation on what the DNC is doing to engage ethnic voters! #NJ”. Three days later, on November 13, the Ethnic Dems tweeted: “Presentation by @AlexandraChalup on how ethnic Americans can organize in 2016 to elect democrats! #IAPolitics”.

In late 2015, as the Trump campaign started to become more popular, Alexandra changed gears and focused more on her research, which included an expanse into Trump’s alleged connections with Russia.

On December 19, 2015, Alexandra represented the Ethnic Dems as she hosted a speech in Manchester, NH.

In January 2016, Alexandra informed a senior official at the Democratic National Committee about the potential connections between Trump and Russia, and warned that Paul Manafort may entangle himself in the 2016 election soon as a result. Simultaneously, Alexandra was also warning members of the Ukrainian-American community about Manafort.

On February 27, 2016, Alexandra hosted a discussion about the Ethnic Democrats for the Afric Vision Network.

On March 24, 2016, Alexandra discussed Manafort and his ties with Russian interests during a meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy with Ambassador Valeriy Chaly and his aide, Oksana Shulyar. Ambassador Chaly dismissed the discussion as he expected Trump to lose the nomination. The meeting also discussed a reception in June 2016 at an event featuring Hanna Hopko and Melanne Verveer.

Andrii Telizhenko was then ordered by Shulyar to assist Alexandra in her research of Manafort, Trump and Russia, as the Ukrainian Embassy was coordinating an investigation with the Clinton campaign. Alexandra, at the time, prepared opposition research files on Manafort.

Four days later, on March 29, 2016, the day after the announcement that Trump had hired Manafort to corral the delegates, Alexandra then briefed the communications staff of the Democratic National Committee about Manafort, Trump and Russia.

After this, Alexandra pushed for the Ukrainian Embassy staff — with encouragement from the Democratic National Committee — to arrange an interview with President Poroshenko to discuss Manafort’s ties to Yanukovych, although the Ukrainian Embassy declined the request.

However, at some point, Telizhenko was brought into a meeting with Alexandra by Shulyar as an American media organisation was conducting their own investigation into Manafort, while Alexandra wanted to push for a Congressional hearing on either Manafort or Trump for September 2016.

On March 30, 2016, Ukraine In Washington was hosted at Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, which was attended by Ambassador Chaly and David Kramer.

In the first week of April 2016, Alexandra discussed with a foreign policy legislative assistant who worked in the Office of Representative Marcy Kaptur about the potential of a Congressional investigation into Manafort.

Alexandra also began working with Yahoo! News journalist Michael Isikoff, who had a prior relationship with Glenn Simpson as they considered writing a book together titled “All the President’s Women” in 1997. Alexandra also reached out to her connections in both Washington and Kiev, and circulated memos and e-mails about Manafort across the Democratic National Committee.

On April 20, 2016, Alexandra received messages from the administrators of her Yahoo! e-mail account, which warned that state sponsored actors were attempting to gain access to her account.

Three days later, on April 23, 2016, Alexandra, Nancy DiNardo and Amy Dacey addressed a gathering at the Belvedere Restaurant in New Britain, CT, where she rallied Ukrainian-Americans against Manafort. The same day, EuroMaidan Art & Graphics declared Manafort as “Putin’s Trojan Horse” and called for his dismissal, and arranged a protest of Manafort as New Britain, CT was his hometown for the same day.

On April 25, 2016, Isikoff published the article “Trump’s campaign chief is questioned about ties to Russian billionaire” in Yahoo! News.

On April 27, 2016, Alexandra held a panel at the Library of Congress, where she met with a delegation of 68 Ukrainian investigative journalists in a program sponsored by the Open World Leadership Center. During this time, she discussed her research on Manafort. After the panel, Isikoff then escorted Alexandra to a reception hosted at the Ukrainian Embassy.

Other attendees to the event at the Library of Congress included executive director John O’Keefe, Oksana Syroid, Bohdan Futey, Richard Bennett, Myroslava Gongadze and Ambassador Chaly. The events are commonly connected to the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation.

“In his address to the guests of the Embassy Ambassador of Ukraine to the US Valeriy Chaly noted that the meeting was very symbolic when all brunches of power gathered under one roof and felt united by the common goal. He urged Ukrainian delegations to take advantage of their visit to the US and disseminate the information about the situation in Ukraine in the context of counteracting Russian aggression, explore opportunities for the launch of new Ukraine-US projects as well as apply new experience and knowledge in Ukraine, in particular in the areas of reforming the justice sector, fighting corruption and ensuring transparency.” — Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine

On May 3, 2016, Alexandra sent an e-mail to Luis Miranda at the Democratic National Committee, where she discussed her panel at the Library of Congress. This was in response to an e-mail from Luis, which featured a link from Politifact: “Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s top adviser, and his ties to pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine” by Aleksandra Kharchenko.

“A lot more coming down the pipe. I spoke to a delegation of 68 investigative journalists from Ukraine last Wednesday at the Library of Congress — the Open World Society’s forum — they put me on the program to speak specifically about Paul Manafort and I invited Michael Isikoff whom I’ve been working with for the past few weeks and connected him to the Ukrainians. More offline tomorrow since there is a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in the next few weeks and something I’m working on you should be aware of.” — Alexandra Chalupa to Luis Miranda

Alexandra also provided a screenshot of the error to Luis.

The screenshot features two tabs — one of which is “Paul Manafort isn’t a GO…”

This is an article written by Franklin Foer of Slate, which was originally titled “Paul Manafort isn’t a GOP retread. He’s made a career of reinventing tyrants.” The article was published on April 28, 2016, the day after Alexandra’s Library of Congress visit, and its current title is “The Quiet American”.

Shortly after the e-mail was sent, a number of executives at the Democratic National Committee became concerned and concluded that the Russians were the state sponsored actors behind the recent phishing attempts. The executives then ordered for Alexandra to cease her research efforts.

“But Chalupa’s message, which had not been previously reported, stands out: It is the first indication that the reach of the hackers who penetrated the DNC has extended beyond the official accounts of committee officials to include their private email and potentially the content on their smartphones. After Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. ‘That’s when we knew it was the Russians,’ said a Democratic Party source who has knowledge of an internal probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, ‘we told her to stop her research.’” — Michael Isikoff

Three days later, on May 6, 2016, John McCarthy sent an e-mail to Alexandra from his personal gmail account to arrange for religious leaders to stage a protest at the Republican National Convention.

On June 20, 2016, Alexandra received her final pay cheque for $25,000.00 from the Democratic National Committee. Coincidentally, this was the same day as the authorship of the first Steele memo.

On July 1, 2016, Rokas Beresniovas tweeted: “Thank you @TheDemocrats @NickSeminerio @AlexandraChalup It was a great event with @Simas44 of the WhiteHouse”.

On July 25, 2016, Isikoff published the article “Exclusive: Suspected Russian hack of DNC widens — includes personal email of staffer researching Manafort” in Yahoo! News, which featured information about Alexandra’s e-mails. The same day, Alexandra was in Philadelphia, where she introduced Senator Amy Klobuchar to the crowd.

In late July 2016, Alexandra left the Democratic National Committee in order to commit full-time to her investigations of Manafort, Trump and Russia, where she became an unofficial source for a number of journalists investigating the three.

On July 31, 2016, Andrea was interviewed by Hromadske’s Nataliya Gumenyuk about Alexandra’s e-mails being hacked.

ANDREA CHALUPA: “Yeah, well, you know, as- as- as, Nataliya, I have friends who are journalists who asked to speak with my sister, and I just keep saying ‘no’ because right now it’s just not a good time for her. Um, she is, you know, working for the DNC right now, and she has a lot on her plate with this election. It’s- it’s- it’s very much an all-hands-on-deck election, things are extremely serious. Things are very, very scary here. Um, so, but what I will say — what I’m allowed to say — because, you know, I can’t speak for my sister, um, she will speak when the time comes, um, but what I can say is that… you know… watching her work tirelessly, tirelessly, from the very beginning, many, many months ago to say: ‘Paul Manafort has just been brought in to run Donald Trump’s campaign. This is a huge deal. This is a very, very, very, very, very serious… warning bell going off, because this is who Paul Manafort is.’ He is a- a- a puppet master of some of the most vile dictators around the world, and of course, we who have focused on Ukraine know the name Paul Manafort increasibly well.”
[…]
“So my sister was- was- an instrumental voice inside the Democratic Party as has been reported to say, you know, this is someone we need to research. And she was leading that research. And… here in the U.S., you know, we have a lot of our own issues that we’re focusing on, so foreign affairs is something that is still abstract to many Americans, so doesn’t get prioritised, um, in elections as it should. But I- I just wanted to finish that point by saying it’s hilarious to me — and it’s hilarious to anyone that’s been following the situation that my sister finally got her message out there to the world in a major way thanks to the Russians. Thanks to the Russians hacking the DNC. Now everybody knows just how dangerous Paul Manafort is.”

In August 2016, Chalupa was contacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where they imaged both her laptop and her smartphone as part of an investigation into the Russian cyber-attacks.

On August 4, 2016, Ambassador Chaly published the opinion piece “Ukraine’s ambassador: Trump’s comments send wrong message to world” in The Hill.

On August 19, 2016, Andrea Chalupa sent out an e-mail, where she celebrated the dismissal of Paul Manafort from the Trump campaign and the potential investigation into him for FARA violations.

On August 22, 2016, Sheryl Gay Stolberg published the article “Ukrainian-Americans, Long Fond of the G.O.P., Greet Donald Trump With Despair” in The New York Times, which featured some time dedicated to Alexandra.

“Democrats, seizing on a potential vulnerability for Mr. Trump, are increasing their own ethnic outreach this year, an effort that has been caught up in Russian political intrigue.

The personal emails of the woman running the outreach effort, Alexandra Chalupa, were among those hacked at the Democratic National Committee, a breach American intelligence officials attribute to Russian spies. Ms. Chalupa, who is of Ukrainian descent, had been researching Mr. Manafort while consulting for the committee when the hack occurred. She has been traveling the country, talking to Democrats about what she has found.

‘I’d talk about the Russia connection and what we were seeing,’ she said in an interview. ‘People were terrified.’” — The New York Times

Now take note of the various locations she was in, and the EuroMaidan protest that was arranged on the same day she was in town.

On September 9, 2016, Alexandra attended the premiere of the Hollywood film “Snowden”, which was also attended by Bill Binney, Oliver Stone, Michael Isikoff, Representative Alan Grayson and the wife of CNN’s Jake Tapper, Jennifer Tapper.

On October 24, 2016, Isikoff published the article “16 people who shaped the 2016 election”, which included Alexandra.

As Election Day drew nearer, Andrea tweeted: “‘The Kremlin also has both video and audio recordings of Trump in a kompromat file.’ #TrumpSexTape”, in which she quoted an article written by Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald, “Why Vladimir Putin’s Russia Is Backing Donald Trump”.

As noted by user /u/JohnWardCinematics on November 1, 2016 on Reddit’s The_Donald, #TrumpSexTape was trending and the originator was Andrea Chalupa. While he confused Andrea and Alexandra with each other in relation to the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Council, he noted the existence of Digital Maidan’s connection to two “Tweet Storms”, one of which related to #TreasonousTrump.

The website on Google which discussed the hashtag #TreasonousTrump followed the same method of social media integration used previously for Digital Maidan to transform anybody into a Maidan activist, instead this time turning anybody into a Trump resister through two planned Twitter Storms: October 20, 2016 and October 26, 2016.

This did not stop Donald Trump from becoming the next President of the United States.

On November 9, 2016, Alexandra posted a Facebook message in response to Hillary Clinton’s concession, where she discussed Russian interference initiating in May 2016, Russian hacking of election systems in over half the states of America, praise for Robby Mook, an apparent discussion between Trump and Manafort about a ‘rigged election’ talking point and Manafort’s federal investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

During this message, Alexandra also mentioned that an organisation known as “The Protectors” based in Washington, DC actively assisted both the Department of Homeland Security and the United States Department of Justice as they monitored activity on November 8, 2016.

“3) Homeland Security/DOJ teamed up with a group that is part of Anonymous based in Washington, D.C. called ‘The Protectors.’ This group saw a lot of activity during Election Day from the Russians and believe that the voting results projected don’t match the internal and public polls because the voting results were manufactured in favor of Trump in heavily Republican counties in key states, and voting results may have been decreased for Clinton in key Democratic counties via malware that was placed by the Russians when they hacked the election systems of more than half our states.” — Alexandra Chalupa

The day after, on November 10, 2016, Andrea tweeted two follow-ups in response to this:

• “My sister led Trump/Russia research at DNC. US hackers protecting voting systems believe Russia hacked vote tallies.”
• “All election day Anonymous hackers working w/DOJ updated my sister: they were at war w/RU hackers in our systems”.

As such, it can be concluded that “The Protectors” were in touch with Alexandra on November 8, 2016.

“Alexandra Chalupa, a former DNC consultant who during the campaign investigated links between Moscow and Trump’s then-campaign manager Paul Manafort, is also participating in the attempt to secure recounts or audits.

‘The person who received the most votes free from interference or tampering needs to be in the White House,’ said Chalupa. ‘It may well be Donald Trump, but further due diligence is required to ensure that American democracy is not threatened.’” — The Guardian

In December 2016, a man named Yoni Ariel — born Jonathan Schwartz — contacted Joseph Smallhoover, the chairman of Democrats Abroad France, as he needed funds to travel to Rome, Italy. Smallhoover pointed Yoni toward Alexandra, who then pointed Yoni toward Brett Kimberlin, who covered the costs of his travels.

After this, Alexandra, Kimberlin and Yoni met with each other in Washington, DC, where they discussed information about President-elect Trump. During this meeting, Alexandra redirected Yoni to the United States Department of Justice to relay his information. Alexandra also discussed the Russian cyber-attacks during the 2016 election.

On December 16, 2016, Alexandra published the article “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: Putin Attacked the U.S. Election” in Medium, which mentioned Rex Tillerson receiving the Medal of Friendship from President Vladimir Putin, a discussion about the Steele memos and Trump’s July 27 press conference, as well as Manafort, Rick Davis, Carter Page, Boris Epshteyn, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Roger Stone.

“Boris Epshteyn?”

In January 2017, Alexandra was interviewed by Politico about her efforts and sources during the 2016 election. A few days later, on January 11, Kenneth Vogel and David Stern published the article “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire” in Politico.

On July 20, 2017, Senator Chuck Grassley sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about Alexandra and her compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

On August 2, 2018, the trailer for the film “Active Measures” was released, directed by Jack Bryan. Alexandra was one of the many people interviewed for the film. Others included Hillary Clinton, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Senator John McCain, Representative Eric Swalwell, Michael McFaul, Michael Isikoff, Clint Watts, Evan McMullin, John Podesta, Jonathan Winer, Asha Rangappa and Molly McKew.

On August 24, 2018, Alexandra tweeted a photograph of herself with Michael Avenatti, stating: “Thank you, @MichaelAvenatti for speaking at the DNC Ethnic Council in Chicago & being a powerful champion for truth and justice, including reuniting families who were cruelly impacted by Trump’s draconian ‘zero tolerance’ immigration scheme. cc: @PikarskiMaureen @nowak_conrad”.

Brett Kimberlin and Yoni Ariel

In 2003, the Justice Through Music Project was founded by Jeff Cohen, Brett Kimberlin and a series of other activists in Bethesda, MD. Throughout 2004, Cohen and Kimberlin reached out to numerous bands — including, for example, Lamb of God — and pushed for the release of political messages on the DVD titled “Rock Your Rights, Vol. 1”. In order to gain access to the bands at the time, Kimberlin flashed a press pass to gain access to various bands in the back stage of different venues.

Kimberlin was also responsible for the Speedway Bombings between September 1–6, 1978 in Speedway, IN. Kimberlin also once claimed that he sold marijuana to Dan Quayle in the early 1970s.

The same year — 2003 — Bev Harris founded the organisation Black Box Voting.

In 2004, Brad Friedman founded The Brad Blog, and his website features quotes from Representative John Conyers, Jr., Senator Barbara Boxer and Robert F. Kennedy Jr..

In 2007, Kimberlin recorded a protest song titled “Happy Springtime (Bush Is Over)”, which was a cover of “Happy X-mas (War Is Over)” through the Justice Through Music Project.

On May 31, 2007, Brad Friedman received call phone photographs from Kimberlin of Karl Rove when they had a chance encounter on Memorial Day, which was then published in an article titled “EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Karl Rove Goes Memorial Day Shopping, Poses for Photo With Anti-War Activist, Gets Told About ‘Regime Change Here at Home’”.

In January 2010, Yoni Ariel — born Jonathan Schwartz — founded the organisation Concept Strategic Consulting.

In 2012, the Cleveland Foundation provided a $600 grant to Justice Through Music in Washington, DI.

The organisation Velvet Revolution was founded by two separate organisations; Justice Through Music and The Brad Blog, with a purpose to bring accountability to government.

Velvet Revolution is an umbrella organisation which is comprised of a network of 120 organisations. The four directors listed when incorporated were Brad Friedman, Ben Gelt, Jeff Cohen and Brett Kimberlin.

Kimberlin and Friedman also founded Protect Our Elections, which featured other people such as Emily Levy and possibly Chad Terry and Bev Harris. Protect Our Elections used to be known as Velvet Revolution’s Election Protection Strike Force Blog.

In 2012, The Protectors of Democracy was apparently founded by Brett Kimberlin and Neal Rauhauser, according to a blog site ran by an anonymous user known as “Iron Troll”.

On November 8, 2012, The Protectors of Democracy sent a series of letters over to Velvet Revolution, which were then supposedly received by Velvet Revolution on November 12.

“The Protectors of Democracy” claimed that they had thwarted attempts by GOP strategists to flip votes and rig elections in three swing states through the installation of a password protected firewall — known as “The Great Oz” — to prevent usage of Project ORCA, a ‘Get Out the Vote’ system.

“Days later we packaged the whole thing up and sent it to the media. We invented a Crew in Anonymous called the Protectors of Democracy (a name that still makes me want to vomit), gathered what little forensic evidence we had on the GOP, and blasted the entire thing to the world’s media outlets. To their credit, several had the balls to actually go with the story. In the underground, the whole thing became a bit of a legend. Anonymous has been credited with many amazing things but saving the election for Barack Obama has to be right up there near the top of the ‘most epic list’. Sort of ironic since Obama has tormented, tortured, jailed and seven killed more Information Activists in his eight years than all other previous Presidents combined. Hell of a way to show your gratitude.” — Commander X, Dark Ops: Anonymous Story

Around December 2013 (possibly sooner), Neal Rauhauser founded the website Conspiracy Brokers.

At some point after June 2016, a man named Luigi Forino, the apparent CEO at MCC Petroleum and Gas since September 1999 and a scam artist, acquired documents had apparently been uncovered by the Carabinieri, the Italian federal police. These documents featured money transfers from ExxonMobil to the Trump Organization in mid-June 2016.

At some stage, Forino passed the information onto an unknown person, who then passed this information to Corrado Pasetti, the manager of ICS Construzioni. With this, Pasetti then informed Gideon Meir of the existence of the ExxonMobil documents.

In July 2016, Yoni Ariel became convinced that Russia was interfering in the 2016 United States presidential election, and started to suggest this was the case.

In August 2016, Democrats Abroad Israel went through reorganisation, which led to Sheldon Schorer’s ouster as chairman within a month, although he remained as legal counsel for the organisation.

In July 2016, Gideon Meir, the former Israeli Ambassador to Italy, contacted Schorer and informed him of the existence of the ExxonMobil documents.

“The strength of his earlier belief that they were genuine was based on his knowledge that the documents were created in June because, he says, their existence was known to Schorer’s Italian sources as early as July or August.” — Haaretz

“Schorer told Haaretz that he passed along the information after Ariel told him he was on his way to Washington, D.C. to meet with activists whom Ariel describes as ‘affiliated with the DNC’ (Democratic National Committee). Schorer said he gave Ariel the tip about the Italian documents in case Ariel wanted to pursue it with his Democratic contacts while in Washington. His source, he said, told him that there were documents uncovered by Italian police which ‘purported to show a suspicious transfer of a huge amount of money,’ but didn’t specify ‘where it came from or where it went to.’ Deciding that ‘I shouldn’t be the one to hold onto it and keep it a secret,’ Schorer gave Ariel the tip along with the name of the Italian who he was told had the documents.” — Haaretz

On October 19, 2016, Yoni published the article “Op-Ed: Benedict Donald” in Jerusalem Online, which was his view that Trump was colluding with Russia to subvert the American political system.

On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump won the election to become the next President of the United States.

The next day, as mentioned before, Alexandra Chalupa posted a message onto Facebook, which mentioned teamwork between the Anonymous-founded organisation “The Protectors” with the Department of Homeland Security and the United States Department of Justice.

“3) Homeland Security/DOJ teamed up with a group that is part of Anonymous based in Washington, D.C. called “The Protectors.” This group saw a lot of activity during Election Day from the Russians and believe that the voting results projected don’t match the internal and public polls because the voting results were manufactured in favor of Trump in heavily Republican counties in key states, and voting results may have been decreased for Clinton in key Democratic counties via malware that was placed by the Russians when they hacked the election systems of more than half our states.” — Alexandra Chalupa

This was followed by a tweet from Andrea Chalupa.

“All election day Anonymous hackers working w/DOJ updated my sister: they were at war w/RU hackers in our systems”.

As noted in my previous article about The Deputies Meetings, on Election Day, both the counterintelligence and cyber teams at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Headquarters monitored a disinformation campaign spread across Twitter and Facebook, following a series of hoaxes against Hillary Clinton. This effort was carried out with the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, with the three teams contacting a specific team at the White House Situation Room every three hours to discuss any potential problems.

“As the hours ticked by on Election Day, teams at the FBI, Homeland Security Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence held conference calls every three hours with a team at the Situation Room in the White House to discuss possible problems, according to multiple sources.” — CNN

In mid-November 2016, after the victory of Donald Trump to become the next President of the United States, Yoni contacted Joseph Smallhoover, the chair of Democrats Abroad France and a partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. Smallhoover pointed Yoni toward Alexandra Chalupa, the former operative for the Democratic National Committee, who then directed Yoni to Kimberlin. After a discussion, Kimberlin arranged travel arranged travel for Yoni from Tel Aviv, Israel to Washington, DC, with Kimberlin covering the cost.

During his preparations to travel to Washington, Yoni contacted Sheldon Schorer and informed him that he would be meeting with activists affiliated with the Democratic National Committee. In response, Schorer informed Yoni about the existence of the Exxon documents.

“Not long after Trump won the election, Schorer, the former spokesman for Democrats Abroad Israel, told Ariel about the alleged Exxon payments and the documents that supposedly provided proof.

Ariel, intrigued, decided he would need help paying for trips to Rome to acquire the documents and also with authenticating them. A string of contacts, including the chairman of Democrats Abroad France, and a former Democratic National Committee operative in Washington, DC, eventually led Ariel to Brett Kimberlin, a left-wing political activist who is also notorious as a felon convicted of setting off bombs in the American heartland.” — BuzzFeed News

“Schorer told Haaretz that he passed along the information after Ariel told him he was on his way to Washington, D.C. to meet with activists whom Ariel describes as ‘affiliated with the DNC’ (Democratic National Committee). Schorer said he gave Ariel the tip about the Italian documents in case Ariel wanted to pursue it with his Democratic contacts while in Washington. His source, he said, told him that there were documents uncovered by Italian police which ‘purported to show a suspicious transfer of a huge amount of money,’ but didn’t specify ‘where it came from or where it went to.’ Deciding that ‘I shouldn’t be the one to hold onto it and keep it a secret,’ Schorer gave Ariel the tip along with the name of the Italian who he was told had the documents.” — Haaretz

In Washington, Yoni met with both Alexandra and Kimberlin, where they discussed information about President-elect Donald Trump and the Russian cyber-attacks. At the same time, Alexandra suggested that Yoni reach out to the United States Department of Justice. The information would reach both the United States Department of Justice and the Senate Committee On Foreign Relations by early January 2017.

Before December 25, 2016, Yoni travelled to Rome — again, with his costs covered by Kimberlin — where he met with Pasetti. Pasetti showed off portions off the ExxonMobil documents to Ariel on this visit.

On a second trip, Ariel and Pasetti then negotiated price for a series of Exxon documents, as Pasetti requested between EUR 150,000.00–200,000.00, although it was eventually negotiated down to $9,000.00.

Between January 16–22, 2017, Yoni travelled to Rome again, with his costs covered by Kimberlin again, to purchase the Exxon documents from Pasetti — again, using Kimberlin’s funds. Upon his arrival, Yoni met with Pasetti at the rear of a café, where they exchanged monies and documents.

Yoni then passed the Exxon documents he received to a number of Democratic and anti-Trump activists. The documents were then shared with news organisations, such as BuzzFeed News, Bloomberg News and The Washington Post, while The New York Times was offered the documents.

On January 22, 2017, a political activist connected to Kimberlin contacted BuzzFeed News to discuss the ExxonMobil documents and Yoni’s visit to Rome.

On February 2, 2017, Howie Klein published an article for the blog Down with Tyranny!, titled “What Does Big Oil Get For It’s Political Bribery?”, which discussed Yoni’s gathering of the ExxonMobil documents. The article was a write-up Yoni had developed weeks prior.

In mid-February 2017, The Washington Post concluded that the Exxon documents provided by Yoni Ariel were forgeries.

On March 15, 2017, Ken Bensinger, Jason Leopold and Craig Silverman published the article “How Donald Trump’s Enemies Fell For A Billion-Dollar Hoax” in BuzzFeed News.

“A former official with the Democratic National Committee has worked in recent months with a convicted domestic terrorist-turned-activist known as the ‘Speedway Bomber’ to gather information on Donald Trump, The Daily Caller has learned.

That work culminated in a Washington, D.C. meeting in December between the ex-DNC operative, Alexandra Chalupa, the convicted bomber, Brett Kimberlin, and a South-Africa born Israeli man named Yoni Ariel.” — Chuck Ross, The Daily Caller

And that’s pretty much all we’ve heard from them really.

See you next time as I write more stuff.