Facebook, Twitter’s Russian ties run through Kushner — and that raises big questions
This should raise some major red flags — from Congress to the DOJ to the Special Counsel investigation. And yes, Twitter and Facebook proved to be in on the whole “corporate useful idiot” Putin rubles gravy train:
Two Russian state institutions with close ties to Vladimir Putin funded substantial investments in Twitter and Facebook through a business associate of Jared Kushner, leaked documents reveal.
The investments were made through a Russian technology magnate, Yuri Milner, who also holds a stake in a company co-owned by Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser.
The discovery is likely to stir concerns over Russian influence in US politics and the role played by social media in last year’s presidential election. It may also raise new questions for the social media companies and for Kushner.
Alexander Vershbow, who was a US ambassador to Russia under George W Bush and to Nato under Bill Clinton, said the Russian state institutions were frequently used as “tools for Putin’s pet political projects”.
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The investments are detailed in the Paradise Papers, a trove of millions of leaked documents reviewed by the Guardian, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and other partners, along with other previously unreported filings.
Facebook and Twitter were not made aware that funding for the investments came from the state-controlled VTB Bank and a financial arm of the state oil and gas firm Gazprom, according to Milner. A spokesman for Kushner declined to comment.
And, as the old saying goes, timing is everything:
Kremlin-backed support for Donald Trump’s candidacy over social media began much earlier than previously known, a new analysis of Twitter data shows.
Russian Twitter accounts posing as Americans began lavishing praise on Mr. Trump and attacking his rivals within weeks after he announced his bid for the presidency in June 2015, according to the analysis by The Wall Street Journal.
The big questions:
- Who was representing the interests of the cloaked Russian “investors” in interactions with twitter and Facebook?
- How extensively was Kushner acting as an agent of their interests?
- Which other members of Trump’s campaign team were acting on behalf of the “investors”? (Brad Parscale, maybe?)
Developing hard…
