The real meeting Paul Manafort had related to Julian Assange, is when the incoming Ecuadorian president, Lenin Moreno, offered to sell-out Assange to the U.S.
In May 2017, Manafort traveled to Ecuador. He tried to offer his services to a new client, the incoming president. His hopes were to broker a deal to get China to invest in Ecuador, whereby he would get a cut through a nice commission. At the time, Manafort was under legal pressure and have to pay mounting bills and settle debts.
Moreno and his aides wanted to get rid of Assange, reports The New York Times. According to three sources, Ecuador asked to be given concessions like debt relief in exchange. But before any deal could be made, Robert S. Mueller III became special counsel to investigate the so-called "Russiagate", where Russia was being blamed for the Democrats losing the 2016 elections. Manafort became a key target, and talks ended with Moreno.
As far as the talks to capture Assange are concerned, the NYT reports there is no evidence that it went beyond Manafort, with no briefing being done to Trump or his administration. There is also no evidence that the reason for Manafort to be involved was due to Assange or WikiLeaks having helped Russia to interfere in the 2016 elections and get Trump elected.
Manafort apparently knew at the time that investigators were closing in on him, says the NYT. His plans to act as an international broker in A china deal led to proposals for an Assange deal. Manafort's spokesman, Jason Maloni, says Moreno came to Manafort about Assange, not the other way around. He wanted "to remove Julian Assange from Ecuador’s embassy". No mention of Russia was made at the time.
With a failed meeting to sell-out Assange to the U.S. for prosecution, Moreno later turned to Russia as a way to get rid of Assange. Moreno granted Assange citizenship, and tried to secretly get him approved in a diplomatic post in Russia to get him out of the Embassy. But British authorities opposed this move, saying they would arrest Assange when he left the embassy.
Manafort went to Puerto, Rico, Iraq, the UAE and Hong Kong in efforts to broker deals, as he presented himself as a liaison to the Trump administration. But a deal for Assange would be trickier than trying to get China to invest in Ecuador or buy Puerto Rico's debt and own the island's electricity. Months earlier Trump and his team had cheered on WikiLeaks for their data dumps on Hilary and the DNC. Plus, Assange wasn't even charged at the time, or at least he wasn't publicly charged given his criminal charges remain sealed until he is arrested.
Trump's support of WikiLeaks, when the U.S. intelligence community refers to WikiLeaks as a "terrorist" organization, coupled with butt-hurt Democrats losing to Trump, led to the belief that the leaked documents were provided by Russian agents to help Trump win. Assange and WikiLeaks have become a big target for the deep state to go after in their efforts to unseat Trump.
The idea of Russian-sponsored "fake news" has led the media monopolies and the giants like Google to justify a tightening of the information flow. To "fight fake news", tech giants like Google, Facebook, Bing and YouTube have changed their algorithms to limit access to alternative news that challenged the mainstream alternative. As FAIR reports:
Since Google changed its algorithm, WikiLeaks’ search traffic dropped 30 per cent, AlterNet by 63 per cent, Democracy Now! 36 per cent and Common Dreams by 37 per cent.
The fact that Trump won is traced to downfall of the Democrats after WikiLeaks leaked the emails. Explaining that with a "Russian-engineered fake news plot" to "destroy American democracy" is the fake news that the deep state and mainstream media wants people to gobble up. They have to try to blame foreign interference for the loss to Trump, because it can't possibly be that people were already fed up and pissed off about the decaying political spectrum.
I wonder how many of them know they are bullshitting the public to try to make themselves into heroes of the American democratic way of life, and how many actually think they are still heroes who deserved to win if only it wasn't for Russia ruining it all for them.
References:
- Manafort Discussed Deal With Ecuador to Hand Assange Over to U.S.
- Misreporting Manafort: A Case Study in Journalistic Malpractice
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