FBI looked into Trump plans to build hotel in Latvia with Putin supporter

Exclusive: US authorities made inquiries even before 2016 election campaign into Trump property dealings in former Soviet Union

Riga, the capital of Latvia. Photograph: Nicole Kucera/Getty Images/Flickr RF

Jon Swaine

Thu 29 Mar 2018 06.00 BST

They wanted to build the Las Vegas of the Baltics.

In 2010, a small group of businessmen including a wealthy Russian supporter of Vladimir Putin began working on plans to build a glitzy hotel and entertainment complex with Donald Trump in Riga, the capital of Latvia.

A senior Trump executive visited the city to scout for locations. Trump and his daughter Ivanka spent hours at Trump Tower with the Russian, Igor Krutoy, who also knows attendees of a fateful meeting at the same building during the 2016 US election campaign.

Then the Latvian government’s anti-corruption bureau began asking questions.

The Guardian has learned that talks with Trump’s company were abandoned after Krutoy and another of the businessmen were questioned by Latvian authorities as part of a major criminal inquiry there – and that the FBI later looked into Trump’s interactions with them at Latvia’s request.

Those involved deny that the inquiry was to blame for the deal’s collapse.

Latvia asked the US for assistance in 2014 and received a response from the FBI the following year, according to a source familiar with the process. Latvian investigators also examined secret recordings in which Trump was mentioned by a suspect.

This means the FBI looked into Trump’s efforts to do business deals in the former Soviet Union earlier than was widely known. Robert Mueller, the special counsel, is now investigating other Trump dealings with Russians as part of his wide-ranging criminal inquiry into alleged collusion between Moscow and members of Trump’s 2016 campaign team.

The Riga developers saw their potential partner in New York as a ticket to lucrative western revenues.

“They were very proud to be talking with Trump,” said Andrejs Judins, a Latvian Unity party MP, who has been a vocal critic of the prosecutor general’s decision to close the corruption inquiry in 2016 without pursuing charges.

Krutoy, a well-known composer in Russia, has written music for Emin Agalarov, the Russian singer whose father hosted Trump’s 2013 Miss Universe contest in Moscow. Krutoy attended the contest, where he was photographed with Trump.

Emin once named Krutoy as one of his closest friends in music. Public records show the Krutoys and the Agalarovs owned neighbouring houses in New Jersey in the 1990s, and now own condominiums in the same luxury complex in Florida. Krutoy said he considered the Agalarovs as acquaintances rather than friends.

 Igor Krutoy, Donald Trump and Aleksander Serov in Moscow during the festivities around Miss Universe 2013. Photograph: web


In June 2016, the Agalarovs attended a meeting at Trump Tower with senior campaign officials that is now a flashpoint for Mueller’s investigation. Emin’s manager emailed Donald Trump Jr beforehand to say the Agalarovs would bring dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. Trump Jr responded enthusiastically.

Krutoy, 63, was a celebrity representative for Putin’s 2018 election campaign and has received major state honours from the Russian government for his music.

He was born in Ukraine and is also a close friend of Rinat Akhmetov – a Ukrainian steel tycoon who in 2005 hired Paul Manafort, Trump’s future campaign chairman, as an adviser. Krutoy said he did not know Manafort, who has been charged by Mueller with financial crimes and failing to register as a foreign agent.

Yet Trump’s brush with Krutoy has gone largely unnoticed amid intense scrutiny of the president’s financial links to Russia, which is accused by US intelligence agencies of attacking the US election system in 2016 in an effort to help elect Trump.

The Latvian talks began without fanfare. David Orowitz, Trump’s senior vice-president for acquisitions and development, discreetly visited Latvia in September 2010 to explore locations, according to one source. The island of Zakusala, in Riga’s Daugava river, emerged as the likeliest site.

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 Viesturs Koziols shakes hands with Donald Trump. Photograph: Vip Invest

In June 2011, Krutoy and two associates met Trump’s elder daughter, Ivanka, at Trump Tower in Manhattan to discuss the possible development, according to Krutoy and Viesturs Koziols, a well-connected Latvian businessman who was one of the other attendees. Ivanka Trump is now a senior White House adviser.

The businessmen were also ushered in to see Ivanka’s father in his office, they said. Koziols said the meetings were scheduled for 40 minutes but lasted four hours.

“We had an extraordinarily good meeting with Ivanka,” said Koziols, who added that he and Donald Trump “shook hands as possible partners”. 

The discussions centred around developing a permanent venue for New Wave, an annual musical talent contest that Krutoy co-founded. A comparison with Las Vegas was made in an attempt to catch Trump’s eye, according to one person familiar with the discussions.

“The idea was that we could use the hotel during the festival for the singers and musicians, and we could use the concert hall for performances,” Krutoy told the Guardian.

Krutoy flew to Riga and in July gave a press conference about the Trump talks alongside Ainārs Šlesers, a flamboyant Latvian businessman and former deputy prime minister, who was assisting the efforts to secure Trump’s involvement.

“By attracting the attention of such a serious investor like Trump, we can think about directing New Wave towards a western European audience,” Krutoy said at the time.

Šlesers said in August 2011 that he, too, met Trump in New York and discussed the Riga collaboration “several times” with Ivanka Trump. Detailed plans went back and forth with the Trump Organization, which signaled a willingness to press ahead, according to one person involved.

During the following weeks, however, difficulties arose. Krutoy was called in for questioning by Latvia’s Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB), which had recently embarked on an investigation that became known locally as the “Oligarchs Case”. No allegations were made against Krutoy, he was never charged, and he denied any wrongdoing.

But Šlesers was a central figure in the inquiry, suspected of using public office to influence decisions on property developments benefiting companies he secretly owned. He and Koziols were also questioned in 2011. They denied any wrongdoing and were not charged. Šlesers did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Discussions with the Trumps about developing the complex in Riga ground to a halt. People who were involved deny that the KNAB investigation was to blame. Koziols said he and his associates simply could not secure enough external financing.

During a visit to Riga in May 2012, Donald Trump Jr acknowledged that his family had explored the potential Latvian development. “We were talking,” he told reporters, after being asked about Krutoy’s group. “We went back and forth for a little while. Nothing went forward, but it’s an area that we are interested in.”

At the heart of the Latvian inquiry were secret recordings of meetings involving suspects at a hotel in Riga. According to leaked transcripts published by the magazine IR, Šlesers was heard telling a potential investor in February 2011 that he had “an agreement with Trump” after meeting him in New York, and that they were “ready to make the Trump Plaza Riga”. Šlesers did not respond to a request for comment by IR.

Apparently keen to chase down this line of inquiry, Latvia made an official request for judicial assistance from the US in February 2014. The interest from Latvian authorities in Trump was first reported last year by Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze of Riga.

Latvia’s request was described to the Guardian by two sources who have reviewed it but were not permitted to discuss it publicly.

The Latvian authorities asked for Trump himself to be interviewed for their inquiry, according to the sources. At least one Trump Organization executive did speak with FBI officials, and the company provided written answers to additional questions.

The US did not formally respond until September 2015, the sources said. By then, Latvian investigators were close to concluding their case, and appear not to have pursued the link with Trump any further.

Alan Garten, chief legal officer of the Trump Organization, said he could not recall whether the company had received a request for information relating to Latvia. “But if we were contacted by the authorities, we would have certainly cooperated,” Garten said in an email.

The FBI, justice department and Latvian authorities declined to comment.

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 Igor Krutoy with Emin and Aras Agalarov, at a birthday party for Aras Agalarov in November 2015. Photograph: web

The Agalarovs denied any wrongdoing. Their attorney, Scott Balber, said: “The Agalarovs did not introduce Mr Krutoy to the Trumps and had no involvement in any discussions between Mr Krutoy and the Trumps. The Agalarovs did not know the Trumps in 2011.”

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Ivanka Trump’s attorney, said: “Work and meetings Ms Trump had five years before the election, which had nothing to do with the election, are not relevant topics to which we will respond.”

The blunted conclusion to the Oligarchs Case remains a source of intense frustration to anti-corruption campaigners in Latvia. Judins, the MP, examined the case on a special commission and said it exposed “state capture” in his country.

“I think there was enough evidence for the prosecutor to continue this case,” said Judins. “But he said no.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/29/trump-fbi-hotel-latvia-investigation-russia-links

Defining antisemitism : Enough is Enough: What would Mandela have said?

 Defining antisemitism 

Reflections on Monday’s events In Parliament Square

JVL Introduction

David Rosenberg, active member of the Jewish Socialists’ Group for well over 40 years, and a member of Jewish Voice for Labour, offers some personal reflections on recent events on his blog Rebel Notes.

David Rosenberg, talking at the launch of Jewish Voice for Labour in Brighton, September 2017

Enough is Enough: What would Mandela have said?

David Rosenberg,  Rebel Notes
28 March 2018

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A towering stone figure stands in the North Western corner of parliament Square – Nelson Mandela – whose statue was unveiled in 2007. I was there when it was unveiled, feeling a personal as well as political connection. The Anti-Apartheid Movement was the first political organisation I joined. Many years later, as a primary school teacher, I taught an 8-year-old boy called Levi, who was immensely proud of his grandfather, Ian Walters, who made the statue. Levi brought in a framed photo of the unveiling to show off to his classmates.

Mandela, 89 at the time of the unveiling, was typically modest. He said: “The history of the struggle in South Africa is rich with the stories of heroes and heroines… All of them deserve to be remembered. We thank the British people once again for their relentless efforts in supporting us during the dark years.”

It was a very generous comment.  Although the anti-apartheid movement won enormous support from the British public – hundreds of thousands took part in protest marches and rallies, and millions boycotted South African goods – among the mainstream political parties, only Labour and the Liberals emerge with credit. The Tories, under successive leaders, and especially Thatcher, argued forcefully against sanctions against the brutal racist regime, which murdered children protesting on the streets. Her husband, like many other leading Tories, had investments in South Africa.  In that final decade before the fall of apartheid, while those Tories were busy guarding their investments, and a section of the Young Tories were producing posters and t-shirts saying “Hang Nelson Mandela”, many Labour politicians were present in the front ranks of demonstration activity, especially the newly elected member for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn, who was arrested for his efforts.

Britain was also home to exiled South Africans, who continued to contribute to the struggle politically from Britain, such as the Jewish ANC activist Ben Turok. born to to Russian Bundists (anti-Zionist Jewish socialists) in South Africa in 1927. Turok stood with Mandela, Oliver Tambo and others in the Treason Trial from 1956-60. he later served three years in Pretoria Prison, on at least one occasion alongside Mandela. When I interviewed him in 1986, he told me about that although he felt very attached to Yiddish culture (he showed me a poem in Yiddish his mother sent him when he was imprisoned with Mandela), he and  other Jewish activists felt compelled to choose between the Jewish community and the liberation struggle.

Politically, the Jewish community was closely policed by the South African Board of Deputies. In a literal sense. While the main government-supporting Afrikaans press were producing classic antisemitic cartoons about Jewish financiers, Turok told me that the Board of Deputies were busy informing on Jewish anti-apartheid activists to the SA authorities, handing over personal details.

Turok had a private meeting with Gus Seron, leader of the SA Board of Deputies, encouraging the Board to at least give some indication of support for democratic and anti-racist positions: “We wanted the Jewish Board to give some recognition to the fact that the Black people of south Africa had legitimate aspirations. we were not asking them to get guns and fight. We were asking them to make some gesture of recognition. They refused to do that.”

Our own Board of Deputies are little better. Their appalling record in the 1930s, when they seemed to spend more time criticising Jewish anti-fascists than combating Oswald Mosley’s fascists, and famously advised Jews to stay indoors and pull down the shutters rather than confront the fascists at the Battle of Cable street, is well known. Thankfully the jewish public ignored them then, and grassroots activists explained why they were ignoring them – regarding the Board as the old establishment and thoroughly unrepresentative.

Always a socially conservative force in the Jewish community, they continue today to be led and dominated by supporters of the Tory Party that defended apartheid south Africa. They still pursue a relentless anti-left agenda, and frequently identify internationalist left movements as antisemites. Mandela’s statue must have thought he was in an Alice in Wonderland world as he stared down at the current Board of Deputies president, Jonathan Arkush, addressing a crowd of several hundred Jews who welcomed into their ranks that evening non-Jewish guests, such as DUP luminaries, Nigel Dodds, Sammy Wilson and Ian Paisley jr, the veteran far right Tory Norman Tebbit who famously talked of a “cricket test” for immigrants to show how patriotically British they were, and Zac Goldsmith who ran the most appallingly Islamophobic campaign for Mayor against Sadiq kahn in 2016. In the name of anti-racism, and especially the fight against antisemitism, Arkush was ranting agaisnt Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn whose record on anti-racism and on support for human rights, among the current crop of parliamentarians, is second to none.

Anti-racism is not a pick and choose activity. And nor is support for human rights. Jeremy Corbyn knows that. Arkush, however, has never criticised the appalling human rights record of the Israeli Government towards the Palestinians. He is a firm supporter of the most right-wing , racist and pro-settler government Israel has ever had. The Board of Deputies, and their co-sponsors of Monday’s demonstration, the self-proclaimed Jewish Leadership Council  had not a word of criticism for Zac Goldsmith’s dog-whistle mayoral campaign.

Antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of racism rise in tandem, as we have seen in Donald trump’s America and are seeing in central and eastern Europe, where far right forces are growing in strength and entering government. Most  commentators would have little difficulty in making the connection between government policies in these countries and the very congenial atmosphere for racists, white supremacists and fascists that they have engendered. Just this week it was reported that here in Britain, there was a 28% increase in referrals to the Government’s Prevent programme of young people influenced by far right ideology. This is happening on the watch of Prime Minister Theresa May. Jewish bodies report a significant increase in antisemitic abuse and attacks in 2017. where the perpetrators and their moitives have been identified, most of these incidents are connected with far right ideology. Again on the watch of Theresa May. And yet bizarrely, Jewish leaders are trying to damn Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, the very party responsible for practically every piece of anti-discrimination law in Britain, laws which were first put in place while many Tories were investing in apartheid South Africa and condemning anti-apartheid activists as communists and extremists.

If the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Coucnil, and their bigoted DUP friends what to belatedly take a stand against racism, they might want to look instead at the groups attached to the Conservative party who are developing ever closer relations with the Alt-Right and Identitarian Movement, who are promoting white supremacism, opposition to multiculturalism, and state-assisted repatriation of immigrants to their “natural homelands”, such as the Traditional Britain Group (TBG), founded by Tory Party member Gregory Lauder Frost (currently its vice president), and presided over by Tory peer Lord Sudeley.

Int he 1990s Lauder Frost happily shared a platform with Holocaust revisionists and deniers such as David Irving and Ernst Zundel. he has described the Nuremberg trial s as a farce and said he was opposed to Britain declaring war on Nazi Germany. Much more recently he was taped by an undercover reporter calling Stephen Lawrence’s mother Baroness Lawrence a “nigger”, and Radio presenter Vanessa Feltz a “fat jewish slag”.  Of Nelson’s Mandela’s continent Lauder Frost says: “we owe Africa nothing. it owes us… for lifting it out of barbarism.”

Tory MP Jacob Rees Mogg gave a talk to the Traditional Britain Group in 2011 and chatted amiably with Lauder Frost who was sitting next to him at the event . In 2013 the TBG gave a platform to key figures from the Alt-right/White supremacist movement internationally such as Richard Spencer from America, and also to Alex Kurtagic, a far right identitarian. Last year TBG welcomed Dr Thomas Hubner from the extreme right Austrian Freedom Party which has now entered a coalition government there, and Bruno Gollnisch an MEP of the French National Front

The TBG is determined to educate its members in its ideology. Its “recommended reading” on its website includes My Life, the autobiography of Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, Revolt against the Modern World, by Julius Evola who is regarded as an inspirational philosophical thinker by many fascists, Heredity and Humanity, the work of the “race scientist” Roger Pearson, a retired British anthropologist, and fierce defender of “Aryan” racial superiority, who has maintained ties to numerous neo-Nazi groups and individuals. And to bring us back to southern Africa, they also encourage you to sample The Great Betrayal, by Ian Smith about the apartheid country he governed, then called Rhodesia.

Not surprisingly the Traditional Britain group led by Tories have called for the  removal of one monument from Parliament Square – the statue of the great anti-racist fighter and leader Nelson Mandela. I’m not surprised.

http://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/antiracism/reflections-on-mondays-events-in-parliament-square/

Jeremy Corbyn letter to Jewish leaders: I will always be your ally in the fight against antisemitism

My comments : 

1. First of all we have to assume that this letter is genuinely arriving from the hands of JC and the fact that it has been published on the official Labour Website might indicate that the assumption - until further notica - might be justified.

2. If we do accept that this letter has been written by JC, we – even allowing the consideration, that JC might have opted for the perspective as leader of the (entire) Labour party, who “has to” address the full spectre of opinions from within the party and therefor not being in the position, of posing too controversial questions – immediately have to ask the question, why he would try to completely accommodate to (i.e. to plead guilty to) almost the entire encyclopedia of (mainly politically motivated) criticism, that has been thrown at him by his opponents, be it (cross-party) pro-zionist Jews, be it pro zionist Christians and/or others.

3. Might he have been (ill-) advised by – for example – his over-ambitious deputy Watson et al. – who in the past has been clearly identified of trying to remove JC from his leadership position – to try to (opportunistically) eliminate any apparent reference to whatever weaponized use of the definition of antisemitism at all.

4. Let alone of even daring to question the definition of antisemitism used (in bad faith, for obviously with the wrong intentions) by his opponents in the first place (*) and subsequently – for example – daring to specify / include that same notion, towards the all too legitimate question of BDS and antisemitism and/or towards the question of ethno-nationalism (the racist Jabotinsky variety) and antisemitism and/or towards the question of ethno-exceptionalism and antisemitism.

5. Otherwise : Has the veteran warrior for human rights, JC finally and suddenly been intimidated by his opponents in such a way and manner, that he might have felt forced to represent the (rather distorted, for a-typical for the MP JC as we know him) views on the subject of antisemitism, as he did in his letter.

6. Intimidated in a way maybe – and I have to state some educated guesswork in this respect – that he might have been blackmailed in one way or another, towards his apparent statement on the matter of Labour and antisemitism.

7. I have to ask these questions too, partly because JC – the lifelong activist against injustice and many times smeared all over by his enemies – would know by now, that whenever he (not least in the strikingly subservient way, that he formulated his letter) would admit to any wrongdoing (according to the politicised accusations of his political opponents, that is), the next stage would and will be, that he will be confronted with the unconditional demand of direct, decisive and punitive action against all those, who his opponents will put in front of him on a list.

8. Knowing that – even if JC would fulfil all their impossible demands – he would lose all his credibility as party leader : So he seems to have himself manoeuvred into a lose-lose situation, which is exactly what his opponents are aiming at.

9. So Corbyn – for whatever reason – seems to have bent completely to (the tactics of) his adversaries and by doing so, rendered himself completely to potential political oblivion…

10. If indeed this might be the case, I think it is about time, that others in the Labour Party – both MP’s, members and affiliates / sympathisers – will stand up against the LFI (and organisations with similar destructive tactics) and (more concretely) protect their party leader against the daily barrage of smear attacks that he is up against and which maybe even has finally broken his fighting spirit (given the position of apparently complete surrender, that he seems to have been demonstrating in his supposed (rather unbalanced, self-accusative and non-assertive) letter, printed above)..

(*)   A world wide effort has been staged by Jewish and Chritian zionist interest groups in order to a. change the definition of antisemitism in such a way, that it will suit the geo-political intentions (policies) of jewish and Christian zionists and b. this opportunistically changed definition has to be incorporated into the national legislation of as many nations as possible, as well as incorporated in as many as international treaties as much as possible.

The main aim of this strategy is to try to mute any criticism against the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the so-called occupied territories while those territories will be annexed to "Israel proper" and - in the middle long term - to expel all non-Jewish people from "Israel".

The re-definition of antisemitism has been taken shape by - for example - the re-definition (adaption) of the notion of "Israel"  :  Israel in the new definition includes "the occupied territories", which are conveniently re-defined as "disputed territories".

The factual definition of "Israel" (by the ultra-zionists that is) is - after the remake - equivalent to "Eretz-Israel.

But the aimed for perception is the use of the word Israel while implicitly meaning Eretz-Israel and subsequently declaring anti-Israel protests, a illustration of antisemitism.

In this highly manipulative frame, any endorsement for BDS has been "universally" declared anti-semitism, so any politician (within the reach of power) that proclaims BDS, is being accused of antisemitism

     Another geo-political goal is the apprehension of regional hegemony for "Israel" and to obtain this goal by executing the infamous Yinon plan : Invading a number of crucial nations in the region, initiate a process of regime change and dividing those nations by military force along the lines of disunited ethnic communities... 

Moreover, the tel Aviv regime has decided not to fight the actual wars to achieve this Yinon-plan objective itself, but to have its allies (such as the USA) deliver the heavy military effort.

In this context one has to read the notorious "seven states in five years memo" published (revealed) by the hands of former NATO four star general Wesley Clark, a memo that has been written by the USA neo-conservatives, as a blue-print for many proxy wars by the West. in the ME.

Any actor - be it a nation be it an individual politician - that dares to frustrate this geo-political endeavour, is being systematically vilified, as we can clearly observe by the smear campaign against JC and against Russia (the latter preventing the selling out of Syria).


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Revealed: Brexit insider claims Vote Leave team may have breached spending limits

Whistleblower alleges that electoral spending rules could have been manipulated over controversial donation and that Vote Leave ‘tried to delete key evidence’

• Brexit whistleblower Shahmir Sanni: ‘This is a huge deal’

• The ties that bind Canadian data firm AIQ to Leave campaign and Cambridge Analytica

Carole Cadwalladr, Emma Graham-Harrison and Mark Townsend

Sat 24 Mar 2018 14.12 EDTLast modified on Sat 24 Mar 2018 18.04 EDT

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 The Brexit whistleblower: 'Not cheating is the core of what it means to be British' – video

A whistleblower who worked for the official Vote Leave campaign has broken cover to raise concerns that the masterminds behind the 2016 vote – including key figures now working for Theresa May in Downing Street – may have flouted referendum spending rules and then attempted to destroy evidence.

The allegations, from former volunteer Shahmir Sanni, are detailed in an interview in the Observer and supported by a mass of documents and files that he has passed to the Electoral Commission and the police.

Why young, inexperienced BeLeavers were perfect for the Brexit campaign

 

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Sanni’s central claim concerns a donation of £625,000 that Vote Leave ostensibly made to an independent referendum campaign organisation called BeLeave. He claims the money, channelled to a digital services firm linked to the controversial Cambridge Analytica firm, violated election rules because it was not a genuine donation.

The money was registered by BeLeave with election authorities as a donation from Vote Leave to an independent youth operation. Sanni says BeLeave shared offices with Vote Leave – fronted by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – which in practice offered advice and assistance to the group and helped them to decide where their cash would be spent.

British electoral law prohibits co-ordination between different campaign organisations, which must all comply with spending limits. If they plan tactics or co-ordinate together, they must have a shared cap on spending. Vote Leave strongly denies any such co-ordination.

Sanni says that after the commission opened an investigation last March, Victoria Woodcock, the operations director for Vote Leave, deleted herself, campaign director Dominic Cummings and Vote Leave’s digital director, Henry de Zoete, from dozens of files on the drive Vote Leave shared with BeLeave to hide the fact of co-ordination. On a blog post on Friday, Cummings said this was “factually wrong and libellous”. Vote Leave say staff acted “ethically, responsibly and legally in deleting any data”. It is not known whether she was acting under instruction.

A gif showing changes made to BeLeave shared drive permissions on 17 March 2017.

Most of the £625,000 donation went to a Canadian data company called AggregateIQ, which has links to Cambridge Analytica, the firm that used harvested Facebook data to build a political targeting system in the US. Christopher Wylie, the former CA employee turned whistleblower, said that at the time of the referendum, the Canadian firm was operating “almost as an internal department of Cambridge Analytica”.

Mark Zuckerberg apologises for Facebook's 'mistakes' over Cambridge Analytica

 

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AIQ would eventually soak up about a third of all Vote Leave’s official spending, receiving £2.7m from the group in addition to the money that came via BeLeave. The firm also received £100,000 from Veterans for Britain and £32,750 from the DUP. After the referendum, Cummings stated on AIQ’s website: “Without a doubt, the Vote Leave campaign owes a great deal of its success to the work of Aggregate IQ. We couldn’t have done it without them.”

Other senior figures in Vote Leave included Stephen Parkinson, now Theresa May’s chief adviser. Parkinson said in a statement: “I am clear that I did not direct the activities of any separate campaign groups. I had no responsibility for digital campaigning or donations during the referendum and am confident that Vote Leave acted entirely within the law and strict spending rules at all times.”

Sanni, who was treasurer and secretary of BeLeave at 22, is still a committed Eurosceptic and works at the TaxPayers’ Alliance campaign group. He says he decided to go public because he did not want Brexit to be tainted by possibly illegal activities.

He was also alarmed by the fact that his friend, Darren Grimes, the former head of the BeLeave youth group, is a focus of an Electoral Commission investigation into breaches of spending limits.

Sanni said Vote Leave “didn’t really give us that money. They just pretended to. We had no control over it”.

He believes Vote Leave’s senior officials may have taken advantage of the group’s youth and the political inexperience of Grimes to ramp up their own spending. He emphasises BeLeave was a small Brexit-supporting outreach group run by twentysomethings with no real experience or background in campaigning or finance.

He says that it was helped by Vote Leave staff to set up its own constitution and bank account so that it could accept donations of its own. Vote Leave’s lawyers did the legal documentation, he said.

“We were advised every step of the way by Vote Leave’s lawyers. They told us what to do and where to sign.”

The payment to AIQ was ostensibly made by BeLeave as the referendum campaign drew to a close. But Sanni claims BeLeave didn’t have any choice about where the cash would be spent, didn’t sign a contract with AIQ, and did not direct what the data firm did with the funds. The money never even passed through the group’s own bank account.

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 Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings at Vote Leave HQ in central London shortly after the EU referendum result was announced. Photograph: Andrew Parsons/i-Images

“There was no contract in front of me, as treasurer and secretary,” Sanni said. “I didn’t see any contract.” This process was repeated with a further £50,000, from an outside donor.

Vote Leave said: “It was Darren’s decision to hire AIQ, agreed with and confirmed by Shahmir Sanni.”

Venner Shipley, Vote Leave’s lawyers, said: “We have never been instructed by, nor have we ever provided advice to BeLeave.”

Sanni has shared emails with the Observer and the authorities which appear to show the young campaigners seeking advice from top Vote Leave figures, an invoice to VoteLeave covering work on the BeLeave campaign and messages from Vote Leave lawyers and accountants about the practicalities of establishing it as an independent group.

Sanni explained that Vote Leave also set up and managed a shared BeLeave computer drive with the youth campaign’s messaging, information and other documents.

The emails reveal other senior figures were in regular contact with BeLeave. Cleo Watson, who was head of outreach for Vote Leave and is now a political adviser alongside Parkinson in Downing Street, was in touch with the organisation and was a member of a closed Facebook group for BeLeave contributors. In a statement to the Observer, Watson said: “I absolutely deny the claims being levelled against me.”

This weekend Parkinson was at the centre of a political storm after revealing in a statement delivered without Sanni’s consent that they dated each other for a year and a half, including the period when Parkinson was at Vote Leave and Sanni worked as a volunteer.

Parkinson said he only gave Sanni advice and guidance in the context of that relationship. In a statement released on Friday night, lawyers for Sanni said: “We believe this is the first time a Downing Street official statement has been used to out someone. My client is now having to come out to his mother and family ... and members of his family are being forced to take urgent protective measures to ensure their safety.”

In one email to Vote Leave’s lawyer, Watson acknowledged that BeLeave did not have the experience needed to handle the funds that would be spent in their name, stating: “Darren and the rest of the group (all between 18 & 22) don’t feel comfortable handling the money side of things, having no experience beyond their student loans.”

In a statement to the Observer, Watson said: “To imply that being supportive of their work was to have any kind of control over their activities is absolutely untrue.”

Woodcock, the operations director for Vote Leave, has been described by Cummings as “the most indispensable person in the campaign”. The documents provided by Sanni suggest that after the Information Commissioner’s Office last year announced an inquiry into how the campaigns used personal data, she deleted key Vote Leave names, including her own, from dozens of files on the shared BeLeave drive.

Woodcock told the Observer: ‘The gist of those allegations is that I knowingly and deliberately deleted evidence which would be relevant to an investigation in an attempt to frustrate it. I believe that is untrue and completely unsupported by the evidence.”

Cummings said: “The allegations about illegal donations to BeLeave are false and are part of a campaign to cancel the referendum result.”

Further evidence of contact between senior figures at Vote Leave and BeLeave during the referendum came in a witness statement from Matthew Elliott, the campaign chief, which was submitted to the High Court on March 13, 2018 as part of a judicial review.

“I can confirm distinct campaigns were run,” Elliott says, who added that he was including some examples of BeLeave publicity work to help clarify details. “I thought it may assist the Court in having examples of the campaign material used by the different campaigns and I attach those.”

A photograph attached shows a group of young people – including Grimes – beneath the BeLeave logo. But emails detail how on March 18, 2016, it was Cleo Watson who organised that photoshoot. In another email from March 22, it was Stephen Parkinson who signed off on the logo.

In February 2016, a leaked email from prominent Brexit supporter, Steve Baker, now a junior minister in the Department for Exiting the European Union, floated the idea of creating “separate legal entities each of which could spend £700,000”.

Sanni believes this is exactly what happened with BeLeave. “Throughout this whole process Darren and I were victims to very intelligent people trying to find ways to overspend.” Sanni said. He described Grimes as a ‘fall guy’.

Grimes denied to the Observer that there was any collaboration with Vote Leave on campaign material or spending, and threatened legal action.

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Quick guide

Key players in the Vote Leave campaign

Vote Leave: the key players

Dominic Cummings

Campaign director of Vote Leave and former special adviser to Michael Gove, the 46-year-old from Durham has been described as an “optimistic Eurosceptic” by the Economist. Cummings is regarded as the leading strategist of the campaign. He is credited with creating the memorable official slogan of Vote Leave: “take back control”. 

Matthew Elliott (pictured)

Chief executive of Vote Leave, the 40-year-old political strategist from Leeds has been described by the BBC as “one of the most effective lobbyists at Westminster”. Elliott has served as chief executive of Big Brother Watch, Business for Britain and, formerly, the TaxPayers’ Alliance. 

Stephen Parkinson

The national organiser of the ground operation for Vote Leave, Parkinson is from North Shields  and was a special adviser to Theresa May when she was home secretary. Following the EU referendum victory he rejoined her as a special adviser based in Downing Street. His current official title is political secretary to the prime minister. 

Victoria Woodcock 

Vote Leave’s operations director. Credited by Cummings with winning the referendum: he described her as “the most indispensable person in the campaign – if she’d gone under a bus, Remain would have won.” Vote Leave’s powerful ‘Voter Intention Collection System’ (Vics) software was named after her. 

Henry de Zoete 

Old Etonian digital director of Vote Leave and another senior figure from the Michael Gove camp: Zoete, 36, worked for four years as right-hand man to Gove when he was education secretary. 

Cleo Watson

Prominent member of Vote Leave and now a political adviser at 10 Downing Street. Prompted uproar during the referendum when a leaked email revealed her telling clinicians that her group needed doctors and nurses to warn that Britain’s health service was being damaged by the EU.    

Darren Grimes

Former fashion design student, 25, who ran BeLeave – the campaign group given £625,000 by Vote Leave during the final stages of the referendum. The cash was paid directly to data company AggregateIQ. The donation is currently being investigated  by the Electoral Commission. Grimes is now the deputy editor of the BrexitCentral website. 

Boris Johnson 

A figurehead of Vote Leave and member of the campaign committee that met weekly during the referendum to set its campaign strategy. The 53-year-old Old Etonian is currently foreign secretary.

Michael Gove 

Co-convener of Vote Leave’s campaign committee, the 50-year-old  is currently environment secretary.  Previously he has served as education secretary and justice secretary.

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/24/brexit-whistleblower-cambridge-analytica-beleave-vote-leave-shahmir-sanni

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My comments :

1. The true (false) nature and modus operandi of the main organisations behind and and in front of the two major leave campaigns seem to unravel quickly now, 

2. These revelations will contribute to either the annulment of the 2016 EU-UK referendum (on the ground of legal issues), or to a second referendum.

3. The very same procedures might be applied to the 2016 2016 USA Presidential and Congress elections, that seem to have been dominated by the very same leading figures, as the one;s behind the  UK-EU Leave campaign.

4. In the USA - and apart from the electioneering (i.e. brainwashing) issue of personnel voter targeting - there is the election spending laws issue of a structural trespassing of the supposedly impregnably installed fire walls between the super-PAC organisations and the personnel presidential campaign. 

 5. Besides the legitimacy of the outcome of respectively the USA elections and the UK referendum, both in the UK and in the USA, ICT Voter-Gate will have grave consequences for the right and extreme-right spectre of the political parties and their personnel.