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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAP: Mueller probe could draw focus to Russian crime operations
By ERIC TUCKER
1 hour ago
https://apnews.com/1799438c46654447af3c5d33b8dc6b10/Mueller-probe-could-draw-focus-to-Russian-crime-operations
WASHINGTON (AP) The U.S. government has long warned that Russian organized crime posed a threat to democratic institutions, including criminally linked oligarchs who might collude with the Russian government to undermine business competition.
Those concerns, ever-present if not necessarily top priorities, are front and center once more.
An ongoing special counsel investigation is drawing attention to Russian efforts to meddle in democratic processes, the type of skullduggery that in the past has relied on hired hackers and outside criminals. Its not clear how much the probe by former FBI Director Robert Mueller will center on the criminal underbelly of Moscow, but hes already picked some lawyers with experience fighting organized crime. And as the team looks for any financial entanglements of Trump associates and relationships with Russian officials, its focus could land again on the intertwining of Russias criminal operatives and its intelligence services.
Russian organized crime has manifested itself over the decades in more conventional forms of money laundering, credit card fraud and black market sales. Justice Department prosecutors have repeatedly racked up convictions for those offenses.
In recent years, though, the bond between Russian intelligence agencies and criminal networks has been especially alarming to American law enforcement officials, blending motives of espionage with more old-fashioned greed. In March, for instance, two hired hackers were charged along with two officers of Russias Federal Security Service in a cyberattack on Yahoo Inc. in 2013.
tblue37
(65,340 posts)Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)the repubes refuse to lift a finger to defend us from what even freaking dick cheney identified as russian "acts of war" against American democracy.
By refusing to take a stand for the USA, the repubes are disgracing themselves for all history.
WhiteTara
(29,705 posts)Sneederbunk
(14,290 posts)Jimbo101
(776 posts)This is a big deal !
krawhitham
(4,644 posts)NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)end up dead?
DK504
(3,847 posts)former Watergate lawyer, a lawyer that can speak fluent Russian and goes after Russian mob connections, a lawyer with American mob bosses, a lawyer that handles financial crimes....LOL...not to mention their clerks, associates and non-mentioned attorneys on board.
This keeps getting more and more convoluted.
Just impeach the traitor already.
rockfordfile
(8,702 posts)BigmanPigman
(51,590 posts)Barack_America
(28,876 posts)...are about to have a field day with asset forfeiture auctions.
Unfortunately the Donald will likely find his shit on the block too, rather than being available to scoop up deals himself.