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This doesn’t look good for Truss – politicalbetting.com
This doesn’t look good for Truss – politicalbetting.com
EXCLUSIVE: Liz Truss's chief of staff has been interviewed by FBI agents about an alleged criminal plot to bribe a politician and influence a US electionMark Fullbrook quizzed this year after detectives made secret request via Metropolitan Police and NCAhttps://t.co/o8aKIbIlvX
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BBC.com - Tory donor pleads not guilty to US bribery charges
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-62754148
A major Tory donor has pleaded not guilty to charges including bribery in Puerto Rico.
Julio Martin Herrera Velutini is accused of promising to help a former governor of the US territory to get re-elected if she dismissed an official investigating a bank he owned there.
Mr Herrera has donated more than £500,000 to the Conservative Party through his London-based firm Britannia Financial Group Limited since 2019.
His lawyers said he denies all the charges against him.
According to the indictment, financial regulators in Puerto Rico began investigating an international bank Mr Herrera ran there in 2019.
They went on to identify dozens of suspicious financial transactions which the bank did not report as required, including payments involving accounts and entities owned or controlled by Mr Herrera.
Through intermediaries, the Venezuelan banker is alleged to have offered to help the then governor Wanda Vazquez Garced's re-election campaign in exchange for "terminating" the man in charge of the investigation, according to the US Department of Justice, and replacing him with someone of Mr Herrera's choosing.
Prosecutors claim the former governor accepted the offer of a bribe and took action to demand the regulator's resignation and put a former consultant for Mr Herrera's bank in his place.
In return, it is alleged that Mr Herrera paid more than £250,000 to political consultants to help the former governor's campaign.
Although the political consultancy firm is not named in the indictment, it was identified as CT Group by Channel 4 News and the investigative blog the Sarawak Report earlier in August.
The company, which was founded by the Australian political strategist Sir Lynton Crosby, has a long-standing association with the Conservative Party.
Mark Fullbrook, who was CT Group's former Chief Global Projects Officer and is understood to be working on Liz Truss' campaign to become the next leader of the party, was one of those who worked on the Puerto Rico brief. He has been tipped by some to be Ms Truss's chief of staff if she becomes prime minister.
There is no suggestion CT Group or Mr Fullbrook knew anything about the alleged bribery of the governor.
A spokesperson for the company said: "CT was engaged only by Mr Herrera and only to conduct opinion research for him and no one else. It never did any work for, nor presented any research findings to, the Governor or her campaign. It has not been engaged by him since.
"CT Group is committed to and complies with all laws and regulations in any jurisdiction in which it works and is confident that it has done so in this matter. . . ." . . . .
It would incentivise chronic civil war which would be deeply entertaining.
Lock him up!
". . . produced a presentation entitled ‘Campaign Support Proposal for Governor Wanda Vazquez’ if they thought they had merely been commissioned to provide election information for a foreign banker in Puerto Rico?
Then, of course, there was the small point that no less than four members of the company were flown over from London, accompanied by Mr Herrera-Velutini himself, to present that proposal in person to the Governor and her political aides at a meeting in Puerto Rico before the contract to assist in her campaign was signed.
They knew exactly who they were working on behalf of, if paid by Velutini.
All this is in the court papers. Leading the delegation was the senior CT Group partner and Chief Global Projects Officer, Mark Fullbrook, who just happened to leave the company suddenly this March after the scandal broke in the USA.
SSI - Also little matter of whether or not Fullbrook & etc. were aware that "campaign support proposals" bankrolled by THIS banker were ipso facto illegal under US law? Seems a tad ignorant for such high-flying professional politicos.
I reckon there will be another leadership context before the GE.
Summer 2023 leadership election. Last chance before GE.
Is this really going to register outside the westminster bubble?
However, the Emergency Budget will. From everything we've heard it's going to be tin eared.
For one thing, reckon that most Brits have heard of the FBI, and will NOT think it's a plus for the Prime Minister's chief of staff to be questioned > grilled by US G-men.
How much it goes beyond that, depends on developments. Which I'm guessing will NOT include the FBI or DOJ giving Fullbrook a clean bill of health any time soon.
Some bloke named fullbrook (who even I haven't heard of before today, as a nerd who posts on a political website) being interviewed by the FBI is not going to be the thing that brings the government down.
AND if Fullbrook's days at No. Ten are strictly numbered, WHO will be the PM's equivalent to Hope Hicks?
Sources insist it is for workload reasons — related to forthcoming economic announcements — and entirely unrelated to FBI investigation.
https://twitter.com/gabriel_pogrund/status/1571183835609534466
Lobbyists in No10. What a great look. So sweet and innocent smelling.
A story could be brewing about Unispace Global. The CT Group, where Fullbrook was a big figure, represented them. Unispace won government PPE contracts worth £680m.
If any lazy journalists are reading this, try following the Plymouth Brethren angle.
https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/status/1363903263452594177?lang=en
https://www.openandcandid.com/covid-contracts.html
As @Leon may know, Aleister Crowley's parents were Plymouth Brethren
https://twitter.com/whazell/status/1571209105175465987?s=20&t=8dTPrgG4ALcvVXlKc_Qxmw
https://twitter.com/euan_macdonald/status/1571218561091215363?s=49&t=zLB8GprVnnEM2rtZCDG9gw&fbclid=IwAR2wK7fzUQsc9pjkRrD55qfRJyAJpDslbjrkIgftWHmpQ2zt0Iw1CXJuTcM
Potentially between some who wish to surrender and some who do not? in the area there are a variety of Russian fighters, including VDV airborne troops, Naval Infantry's, DPR, and regular Russian army, so space for inter unit rivalry to spill over in to something more serosa.
https://twitter.com/timsarson1/status/1571232634964951045?s=21&t=0eB2Ba_LhG5V9eBr0bIQyw
Lower personal taxes in certain designated “left behind” areas. Add corporate taxes - much more important - and we’re away.
A proper federalised tax system (which this won’t be, it’ll be all controlled from Westminster) might well be a step towards real levelling up.
Or does the UN territory grant diplomatic immunity to whoever's on site ?
Which I am fairly sure they wouldn't.
Assume if will be Coffey v Rayner for PMQs on Wednesday
https://www.sarawakreport.org/2022/09/liz-trusss-chief-of-staff-turned-witness-by-the-fbi-under-threat-of-prosecution-over-illegal-funding-of-us-campaign/
"Hauled up for questioning in April at the offices of their London lawyers were the UK founding partner and former Global Projects Officer, Mark Fullbrook, who is now the chief of staff in Downing Street; the former intelligence officer Eugene Curley and managing director, Sam Lyon"
"Prior to joining CT Group, Eugene Curley hit the headlines as the CEO of the 3G Group that was caught up in the defence company expenses scandal that forced the resignation of the Conservative Secretary of State for Defence, Liam Fox."
That's not the only time Mr Curley has had his name in the newspapers either. Search on him and Paris 1997 for more.
Love it.
Boris could have fast-tracked significant wind installations from February this year that would be on stream now, through tax reliefs and grants. He didn’t because he was asleep on the job. He could also have subsidised insulation and energy efficient boiler replacements for a fraction of the energy price freeze and probably as a result reduced the cost of that freeze. Now Truss is talking about policies for several years hence.
I'm sure Tom Lehrer in his prime could have done something with that.
And get a barrage of threats.
Sir David King has been a left wing extreme talking head for hire for decades now. Him criticising the Tory Government is a real bear shits in the woods story.
… and there are all these posters and digital billboards with pictures of Her Maj and suddenly I am enclosed in proper sadness. Coming back to my Queenless country for the first time in my life. I don’t like it. A great forest has been felled. The hill is ugly and bare
Quite choked
Staged videos for propaganda
UA Partisans or SOF engaging Russian forces
Infighting between Russian soldiers
UPDATE:
Local sources are indicating that recent footage from central Kherson is fabricated.
I cannot be completely sure but I would say this is a correct assessment.
https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1571235120530456576?cxt=HHwWgICwnY6Bk84rAAAA
Re Truss, can we at least wait for the policies? I know government has got leakier and leakier, but we’ve already seen that stuff we think we know (‘Truss will do nothing about the energy crisis’) can be very wrong indeed. I understand that fracking won’t work for this winter and probably not at all but I have no issue with trying to be more self reliant, at least while Putin is still around.
Now maybe its possible to do more, it might always be possible to do more, but it is coming online. But we need hydrocarbons as well as renewables while we transition. Suggesting we should only be doing renewables is the real putting fingers in ears and shouting la la la and leaves us exposed to the volatility of the global market and unsavoury characters.
Sir David King was the permanent Special Representative for Climate Change from September 2013 until March 2017.
IIRC Boris Johnson as FCO Secretary reappointed him.
Who was PM between 2000 and 2007? I don't believe it was Boris Johnson.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/sep/17/schools-urge-parents-to-help-plug-funding-gaps-as-costs-soar
For my own psychic health I have to do a bit of grieving. I’ve been avoiding it in foreign parts
He may know something about climate change, but sometimes a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, as it prevents people seeing the woods for the trees. Climate change needs to be tackled in the round, along with tackling reliance upon Russia and so on and so forth which may be beyond Sir David King's "expertise".
That's why we have elected governments, not governments of self-appointed "experts". The advice of "experts" needs to be balanced between different priorities, ensuring people don't freeze or are wallets aren't held ransom by Sheikhs and Oligarchs is another priority on top of the priorities related to Climate Change.
I mean it’s like there’s an olive oil shortage and our answer is to plant olive trees in Sussex, rather than growing a load more oilseed rape and sunflowers.
Tomorrow's piece, should Prince William renounce being Prince of Wales and become Prince of Scotland to save the Union.
Yes we need to reduce our dependency on gas, but that can't be done by clicking your heels three times. Ensuring we have more domestic resources as well as getting renewables done, not instead of it, is a rational solution.