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Paul Merrell

Billionaires Make War on Iran - The Unz Review - 0 views

  • All the pro-Israel anti-Iran groups engage in pressure tactics on Capitol Hill and have been effective in dominating the political debate. Of thirty-six outside witnesses brought in to testify at seven Senate hearings on Iran since 2012 only one might be characterized as sensitive to Iranian concerns. The enormous lobbying effort enables the anti-Iran groups to define the actual policies, move their drafts of legislation through congress, and eventually see their bills pass with overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate. It is democracy in action if one accepts that popular rule ought to be guided by money and pressure groups rather than by national interests. Less well known is United Against Nuclear Iran, which has a budget just shy of $2 million. UANI is involved in the New York lawsuit. The group, which has somehow obtained a 501[c]3 “educational” tax status that inter alia allows it to conceal its donors, has offices in Rockefeller Center in New York City. It is active on Capitol Hill providing “expert testimony” on Iran for congressional committees, to include “help” in drafting legislation. At a July Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iran all three outside witnesses were from UANI. It is also active in the media but is perhaps best known for its “name and shame” initiatives in which it exposes companies that it claims are doing business with Tehran in violation of US sanctions.
  • UANI is being sued by a Greek billionaire Victor Restis whom it had outed in 2013. Restis, claiming the exposure was fraudulent and carried out to damage his business, has filed suit demanding that UANI and billionaire Thomas Kaplan turn over documents and details of relationships regarding UANI donors who it is claimed are linked to the case. Kaplan, a New York City resident, made his initial fortune on energy exploration and development. More recently he has been involved in commodities trading in precious metals. His wife Daphne is Israeli and his involvement in various Jewish philanthropies both in the US and in Israel have invited comparison with controversial deceased commodities trader Marc Rich, who reportedly worked closely with the Israeli government on a number of projects. The Justice department would like to the see the UANI lawsuit go away as it is aware that what is being described as “law enforcement” documents would include both privileged and classified Treasury Department work product relating to individuals and companies that it has investigated for sanctions busting. Passing either intelligence related or law enforcement documents to a private organization is illegal but the Justice Department’s only apparent concern is that the activity might be exposed. There is no indication that it would go after UANI for having acquired the information and it perhaps should be presumed that the source of the leak is the Treasury Department itself.
  • Who or what provided the documents to a private advocacy group that is also a tax exempt foundation supported by prominent businessmen with interests in the Middle East is consequently not completely clear but Restis is assuming that the truth will out if he can get hold of the evidence. The lawsuit claims that UANI intimidates its targets by defaming their business practices as well as by demanding both examination of their books and an audit carried out by one of its own accountants followed by review from an “independent counsel.” Kaplan is named in the suit as he appears to be the gray eminence behind UANI. He once boasted “we’ve (UANI) done more to bring Iran to heel than any other private sector initiative.” Kaplan also employs as a director or officer in six of his companies the Executive Director of UANI Mark Wallace and reportedly arranged the awarding of the Executive Director position at Harvard’s Belfer Center to its President Gary Samore. Kaplan is a business competitor to Restis, whose lawyers are apparently seeking to demonstrate two things: first, that the US government has been feeding sometimes only partially vetted information to UANI to help in its “name and shame” program and second, that UANI is itself supported by partisan business interests like Kaplan as well as by foreign sources, which apparently is meant to imply Israel. Or even the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. Meir Dagan, former head of Mossad, is on the UANI advisory board, which also includes ex-Senator Joseph Lieberman and former Senior Diplomat Dennis Ross, both of whom have frequently been accused of favoring Israeli interests and both of whom might well have easy access to US government generated information.
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  • And then there is the Muhadedin-e-Khalq, the Iranian terrorist group that has assassinated at least six Americans and is now assisting the Israeli government in killing Iranian scientists, a prima facie definition of what constitutes terrorism. The group was on the State Department terrorist list from 1997 until 2012, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton de-listed it in response to demands coming from friends of Israel in Congress as well as from a large group of ex government officials, many of whom were paid large honoraria by the group to serve as advocates. The paid American shills included former CIA Directors James Woolsey and Porter Goss, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Louis Freeh and former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton. The promoters of MEK in congress and elsewhere claimed to be primarily motivated by MEK’s being an enemy of the current regime in Tehran, though its virulent anti-Americanism and terrorist history make it a somewhat unlikely poster child for the “Iranian resistance.”
  • Supporters of MEK also ignore the fact that the group is run like a cult, routinely executes internal dissidents, and has virtually no political support within Iran. But such are the ways of the corrupt Washington punditocracy, lionizing an organization that it should be shunning. MEK’s political arm is located in Paris and it has long been assumed that it is funded by the Israeli government and by at least some of the same gaggle of billionaires, possibly including their Israeli counterparts, who support the anti-Iranian agenda in the United States.
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    More detail about the extraordinary action of the Dept. of Justice to negotiate a settlement because discovery requested from the United Against Nuclear Iran private organization would include privileged and classified "law enforcement" records.
Paul Merrell

Courthouse News Service - 0 views

  • During secret proceedings in Washington, a key witness in undermining the $9.5 billion judgment Chevron faces in Ecuador repudiated much of his explosive testimony, transcripts made public today show.     Since agreeing to testify for the oil giant, Judge Alberto Guerra's fortunes have changed, and so have Chevron's.     Roughly two years ago, Guerra took to the witness stand in a New York federal courtroom and swore that lawyers for rainforest villagers bribed him to ghostwrite a multibillion-dollar Ecuadorean court judgment against Chevron for oil contamination to the Amazon jungle.     About a year before he made a deal with Chevron, Guerra had little more than $100 to his name. He also owed tens of thousands of dollars in debt and could not afford to visit his children living in the United States.     U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan had warned early on in proceedings that he did not "assume that anyone's hands in this are clean," yet he credited Guerra's testimony last year in ruling that the Ecuadoreans obtained their award "by corrupt means."     The Ecuadoreans have long attacked Guerra, who has a contract with Chevron for various perks, including at least $326,000, an immigration attorney and a car, as a "paid-for" participant in the oil giant's self-styled witness-protection program.     Kaplan's decision conceded that "Guerra's credibility is not impeccable," but found that his account was "corroborated extensively by independent evidence."
  • Both that credibility and the corroborating evidence came under withering attack this year during closed-door proceedings before an international arbitration tribunal.     Though the hearings took place without press or public access at the World Bank in Washington on April 23 and 24, the tribunal agreed to release transcripts of the proceedings in response to a Courthouse News request that the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press supported.     Courthouse News obtained advanced copies of more than 3,000 pages of transcripts, which were formally released on Monday.     They show Guerra putting a new twist on an old saying. "Money talks, gold screams," Guerra said in a June 25, 2012, meeting with Chevron representatives - a meeting Chevron recorded.     Testifying about this comment at the arbitration hearing, Guerra said Chevron showed him a safe filled with money. He recounted Chevron's representatives telling him: "Look, look, look what's down there. We have $20,000 there."     He remembered replying: "Oh, OK, very well, very well."     Guerra said he had only $146 in his bank account a year earlier, and owed tens of thousands more to finish the construction of his house. He said he could not scrape money for airfare to visit his children in the United States.
  •  Minutes from Guerra's meeting with Chevron that came to light during the tribunal proceedings showed that Chevron's lawyers hoped to find evidence that the Ecuadorean government had pressured the Guerra to rule against the company.     Guerra disappointed by saying that Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa's administration "never butted in" to the process, the transcript shows.     "These guys are idiots, but the truth, the truth, I attest, damn, they never got involved," Guerra added, referring to Correa's government.     The remark appears to undercut the foundation of Chevron's arbitration case, which asks the tribunal to blame the Ecuadorean government for a miscarriage of justice.     Guerra stood by those comments on the arbitration panel's witness stand.      "My position is that the government did not intervene," Guerra said.     The only time an Ecuadorean government official tried to elbow into the case, Guerra testified, was under a prior administration. Correa's predecessors pushed to dismiss the case in Chevron's favor in 2003, he said.
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  •  Guerra also acknowledged bluntly on the witness stand that he had lied in telling Chevron's team that attorneys for the Ecuadoreans offered him $300,000.     "Yes, sir, I lied there," Guerra told Eric Bloom, who represents Ecuador for the firm Winston & Strawn. "I wasn't truthful."     Guerra maintains that other attorneys for the Ecuadoreans, specifically Steven Donziger and Pablo Fajardo, offered money in return for ghostwriting the judgment on behalf of Judge Nicolas Zambrano, the final jurist to preside over the case.     Shifting the details of this supposed arrangement, though, Guerra walked back his allegation that Zambrano offered him 20 percent.     "That was my sworn statement in New York, but what I said is that, because of a circumstance, because of a situation, I mentioned 20 percent when it wasn't true, and I think that, as a gentleman, I should say the truth, and we did not discuss - I did not discuss 20 percent with Mr. Zambrano - but we did discuss that he would share with me from what he received," he said.     In his nearly 500-page ruling, Judge Kaplan pointed to bank records, daily planners, shipping records and airplane tickets as corroborating evidence that outweighed Guerra's credibility problems.
  • Particularly persuasive for Kaplan was evidence that Ecuador's national airline, Tame, certified delivery of packages between Guerra and Zambrano.     Guerra told the arbitrators this spring, however, that all 11 of these packages "had nothing to do with the [Chevron] case."     As for his plane tickets to the rainforest from Aug. 11 and 12, 2010, Guerra said they occurred during an irrelevant time period.     "If I traveled during those dates, it wasn't for me to provide assistance to the Chevron case," he said.     Guerra testified that Chevron representatives told him that they would have raised his pay if he could provide them with the key physical evidence they were looking for: a draft of the judgment.     "We were unable to find the main document," Guerra recalled them saying. "Had we been able to find it, we would have been able to offer you a larger amount, something like that, we have $18,000 for you, and we're going to take the computer with us."     Though Guerra did not have a copy of the judgment, Ecuador's forensic expert Christopher Racich testified that he found a running draft of the judgment against Chevron on Zambrano's hard drives.
  • Ecuador now argues that this forensic evidence - which Courthouse News reported exclusively early this year - proves Zambrano painstakingly wrote the ruling and saved it hundreds of times throughout the case.     Chevron has not been able to produce emails between Guerra, Zambrano and the purported ghostwriters, Donziger and Fajardo, Ecuador's forensic expert says.     Guerra acknowledged to the arbitrators that that the bounty of physical evidence he promised Chevron fell short.     There are no calendars and day planners marked with meetings scheduled between Fajardo, Donziger or Guerra, he acknowledged.     While Guerra said he had payments from Zambrano from April 2011 and February 2012, he testified that these "had no connection to the Chevron case."     For Chevron, the thousands of pages of transcripts show that the company "proved its case before the International Arbitration Tribunal."     "Witness and expert testimony confirmed that the Ecuadorean judgment against Chevron was ghostwritten by Steven Donziger and his team and that the Ecuadorian government is responsible for any further remediation," Chevron spokesman Morgan Crinklaw said in a statement. "Chevron also proved that Ecuador breached the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty and international law."     Donziger, who still works for the Ecuadorean villagers seeking to collect from Chevron, said in a statement that Guerra's latest testimony "demonstrates once and for all that Chevron's so-called racketeering case has completely fallen apart."
  •   "Guerra has been the linchpin of Chevron's entire body of trumped up evidence and he now stands not only as an admitted liar, but also as a shocking symbol of how Chevron's management has become so obsessed with evading its legal obligations in Ecuador that it is willing to risk presenting false evidence in court to try to frame adversary counsel and undermine the rule of law," Donziger added.
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    Chevron has a "witness-protection program" as an excuse for paying off witnesses? And for paying them to lie under oath, it appears. Never in my legal career did I ever here of a non-governmental entity with a witness protection program. This reeks to high heavens.  Hats off to Courthouse News for digging deep on this one.   
Paul Merrell

Exclusive: U.S. may use secrets act to stop suit against Iran sanctions group | Reuters - 0 views

  • (Reuters) - The U.S. government is considering using a powerful national security law to halt a private lawsuit against a non-profit group, United Against A Nuclear Iran, according to a source familiar with the case. Greek businessman and ship owner Victor Restis last year sued UANI for defamation after the New York-based group, whose advisors include former intelligence officials from the United States, Europe and Israel, accused him of violating sanctions on Iran by exporting oil from the country.Earlier this year, U.S. government lawyers declared their interest in the lawsuit, warning that information related to UANI could jeopardize law enforcement activities.An intervention by the government in a private civil lawsuit is rare, and its use of a privilege under state secrets statutes to clamp down on the case would be a highly unusual move. Other cases where the government has invoked the privilege include lawsuits filed against the National Security Agency in the wake of leaks to journalists by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
  • Restis' lawyer, Abbe Lowell, also declined to comment, but pointed to court filings in which he argued that the state secrets privilege could not be used without the government first explaining the true nature of its relationship to UANI.Restis denies doing illegal business with Iran. As part of the lawsuit, his lawyers have demanded that UANI produce whatever evidence it had that Restis was violating the sanctions and explain where it came from.Iran denies Western accusations that it has been seeking the capability to assemble nuclear weapons. Diplomatic talks between Iran and the United States, France, Russia, Britain, China and Germany are expected to resume in September, with the aim of reaching a settlement by Nov. 24 that would scale back Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions. An effort by government lawyers to mediate a settlement between UANI and Restis appears to have failed, the source said.
  • UANI advocates economic pressure on Iran to keep the country from building a nuclear arsenal. One of the group's tactics is to name and shame companies and people who do business in Iran.UANI has a small budget. It spent $1.5 million in 2013, according to its tax filings. The group, however, uses sources such as commercially sold satellite imagery for its campaigns.Among its advisory board members are Meir Dagan, the former director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, and August Hanning, the former director of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service.Its chief executive, Mark Wallace, is also the CEO of Tigris Financial Group, an investment company backed by the billionaire American gold investor Thomas Kaplan. Restis did not originally name Kaplan in the defamation lawsuit, but his lawyer is seeking to depose Kaplan as part of the proceedings.
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  • The government and lawyers for UANI have previously sought to delay evidence gathering in the case. UANI lawyers have told the court they could not produce certain documents requested by Restis because they would reveal U.S. government secrets.In March, a Justice Department lawyer wrote to U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos, who is presiding over the case in Manhattan, confirming the government's interest and requesting a temporary halt to proceedings while the government decided what to do. Ramos granted the stay, but ordered the government to explain why it wanted the material suppressed.In an April 9 letter, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Byars wrote that the material in question could be protected under a privilege designed to prevent the public release of law enforcement techniques, confidential sources, undercover operatives and active investigations. But if it invoked the powerful state secrets privilege, the government would be claiming the information would not only interfere with law enforcement efforts but also jeopardize national security.
  • The government has until Sept. 12 to decide whether to use the state secrets privilege.The privilege can be used to block the release of information in a lawsuit, but the government has also used it to force the dismissal of lawsuits. It is unclear whether the privilege would be applied only to certain information in the Restis case or whether it would cause the case to be closed completely.The case is Restis et al v. American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran Inc, (dba United Against A Nuclear Iran) et al, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 13-05032.
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    More detail on the very interesting Restis case against UANI. The normal rule is that a privilege, once the privileged information is disclosed to one who is not entitled to the privilege, is deemed waived. So Restis' lawyer is correct in stating that the state secrets privilege cannot be used without the government explaining the true nature of its relationship to UANI, assuming the information was not stolen by UANI. The disclosure is new of UANI having former directors of Israeli and German intelligence services on its advisory board. This case looks like a cyst on the verge of rupturing and spewing forth a whole bunch of Dark Government pus.   
Paul Merrell

Failed NATO Invasion of Moldova SITREP, by Scott | The Vineyard of the Saker - 0 views

  • It’s hard to overestimate the value of planning in advance, especially when it comes to getting reservations in popular restaurants and invading countries by military force. In the week of the May 9th Victory Day two significant failures took place  each one remarkable in its own way. Each event went completely unreported by the Western corporate and government media, but discussed on Social Media.
  • In the following three weeks after the incident with the USS Florida, while Russia was preparing for Victory Day celebrations and all eyes were on Moscow, attention of Ukrainians was fully concentrated on the visit of Victoria Nuland to Kiev on April 26th allegedly to discuss the implementation of the Minsk II Agreement and the future elections in Donetsk and Lugansk republics. Since the day when President Putin said that the republics can have their elections anytime they want, the question of these elections ceased to be a subject of blackmail toward the Kremlin.   It appeared that the true reason for Nuland’s visit could be located to the west of Kiev, rather than the east. Just recently, Robert D. Kaplan, a former Stratfor’s Chief Geopolitical Analyst, and currently a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) has published a book “In Europe’s Shadow” where he lays out a plan to reunite Romania with “its lost province of Moldova.” Nuland visited Moldova back in January, with the task to coerce Moldova’s government and its oligarchs to change the country’s Constitution provision of neutrality. Before she left, she gave a short speech at the American Embassy in Bucharest after a private dinner with PM Ciolos and President Klaus. “We powerfully support the desire of the people in Moldova to have responsible leaders who can implement reforms. This is the best way to assure the future of Moldova. Romania and the United States, in conjunction with NATO, have support programs in place to assure the security of Moldova but the government has to work to implement these programs.”
  • Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Eastern Europe, and its economy heavily relies on Russia. According to the CIA Fact Book: Moldova’s annual remittances of about $1.12 billion comes from the roughly one million Moldovans working in Europe, Russia, and other former Soviet Bloc countries; Moldova imports almost all of its energy supplies from Russia and Ukraine; Moldova’s dependence on Russian energy is underscored by a more than $5 billion debt to Russian natural gas supplier Gazprom; Moldova signed an Association Agreement and a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the EU during fall 2014, however its biggest trade partner remains Russia. Everyone understands that a NATO membership will cut all economic ties with Russia, including jobs, and it will turn Moldova into a failed state, or in the CIA doublespeak, the country would stop being vulnerable to “Russian pressure.” Apparently, the failure of Moldova as a state, and its disappearance as a nation is also what the EU wants. On January 6, the new Moldovan Ambassador to Germany was presenting his credentials when, out of the blue, the German president asked the new ambassador what the procedure was for Republic of Moldova to formally unite with Romania. On May 4th, the Katehon reported on Vladimir Plahotniuc’s (the infamous Moldavian oligarch and mafia boss) visit to the US and his meeting with Victoria Nuland there. As the Victory Day celebration was approaching, we all fully anticipated from the US to conduct terror acts, military excursions/drills, and political and legal attacks on Russia as the US and the EU always do to harass Russia during its major national and Church holidays.
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  • Starting with April 21st,  we saw a flurry of “news” about Ukraine and Romania joining NATO Black Sea flotilla and the organization of Romanian-Ukrainian-Bulgarian brigade similar to that created by Poland. On April 26, Georgia (Gruzia) pitched in via the Georgia Today: “creation of NATO Black Sea Fleet Gains US Support” and praising Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania for calls to expand the Western military. All what Russia said to all this NATO generated noise was a brief statement of  Russia’s envoy to NATO Alexander Grushko. “NATO should be in a position to know that all necessary steps will be taken from our side to neutralize the emerging threats.” With all these  preparations for the war on Russia going on, NATO also planned military drills in neutral Moldova, chosen to start on May 2nd, the day of remembrance for the victims of the Odessa Massacre. Meanwhile, the patriots of Moldavia who worked together regardless of their political views, discovered something interesting and saved Moldova. NATO reported that for drills they would be entering Moldova in four formations, and that the total of motorized units will be 50+. However, the very first formation that made an attempt to enter the territory of Moldova contained 100+ unites. This was just one formation. And there was expected three more formations.
  • The plan of NATO was to enter the country with too large for this tiny country forces, to stage a bloody false flag attack during the Victory Day celebration in Moldova with the participation of Ukrainian Right Sector terrorists masquerading as “pro-Russia separatists.” This plot worked in Ukraine, so it should work in Moldova, right? That’s the true reason why Nuland was in Kiev two weeks prior. After this false flag attack, a Romanian fleet was planned to enter Ukrainian territorial waters “by invitation of the Ukrainian government” and arrive to Odessa in order to block Russian fleets from interfering and helping Transnistria. But… Coming back to the bizarre incident near Gibraltar, when one NATO member’s tiny 20 tone Costal Guards’ boat was attacked by another NATO member for interfering with the 18,000 tones behemoth of a submarine  of the third NATO member. The NATO plan apparently was to stealthy and quietly position the Ohio-class ballistic guided-missile submarine USS Florida (SSGN 728) in the Mediterranean or even in the Black Sea so it would be able to shoot into Moldova to overwhelm Moldovan minuscule defense forces. We have to remember that it was the USS Florida “that opened up the Libya intervention,” firing more than 90 cruise missiles to destroy Libya’s air defenses and clearing the way for NATO air strikes. “Never before in the history of the United States of America has one ship conducted that much land attack strikes, conventionally, in one short time period,” Rear Adm. Rick Breckenridge had said.
  • However, thanks to Spanish Costal Guards the submarine was discovered and talked about all around the world via social media and the press. The USS Florida had no other options but to retreat and return to home base. In fact, there were TWO incidents on the same April 16th  day involving the USS Florida. First, it was  the Spanish patrol boat belonged to the Servicio de Vigilancia Aduanera, at whom the British Navy opened  fire.  A bit later,  the Guardia Civil vessel Rio Cedeña tried to cut across the submarine’s bow and was photographed  by multiple witnesses.
  • According to V.V. Pyakin, a political analyst with the Concept Technologies Foundation, a think tank located in St. Petersburg, NATO was in a process of conducting a full-scale invasion of Moldova with the annexation of a Southern part of Ukraine including Odessa to construct a NATO Navy base there. Moldova was supposed to become a part of Romania automatically with the US military forces arriving to the capital and taking  over the government of Moldova. That’s why NATO needed all those military “drills” in the Black Sea region and in the Baltics simultaneously. When the patriotic forces of Moldavia discovered that NATO was about to enter the territory of Moldova in four formations, 100+ motorized units each, they protested loudly and blocked the entrance of NATO troops on the border. Meanwhile, the biggest political fraction in Moldova threatened with the impeachment of the president for treason, if  NATO troops would be allowed to enter the country. Reports from Moldova at the time disclosed that American troops stopped at the border crossing didn’t have proper ID and other papers. Moldovans came to greet them with the banners “Moldova is a neutral country” and “Stop bases of NATO,” “Stop NATO” and “NATO go home.” As the result, on April 28th only about 60 units and 200 servicemen the U.S. Army 2nd Cavalry Regimental Engineer Squadron were allowed to enter the country.
  • When a formation of American military crossed the Romanian-Moldova border allegedly to take part in  Dragon Pioneer 2016 NATO military drills, Moldavian opposition leaders expressed protests. Several members of the Parliament blocked the road.  They reported to Russian and international media and news outlets that the US troops didn’t have an international agreement signed by the defense ministers of Moldova and USA. They also lacked a legal government agreement on the entrance of the heavy military equipment and weaponry to the territory of the country. 60% of American servicemen didn’t have valid military IDs. According to a TASS report,  “To prevent collisions, officers from the Fulger (Lightning) police battalion of special purpose intervened, which were specially delivered from Chisinau. After checking the documents, a column of military vehicles followed the US to the place of temporary location at the site of Negresht,” said the inspectorate.” “The initiative to invite the US troops into the country and hold the exhibition of American technology belongs to the Minister of Defense of Moldova Anatol Șalaru, who is famous for the organization of the “Museum of Soviet occupation” in Chisinau, calls to repeal neutrality and make the country a member of NATO, and the fight against monuments of the Soviet era.” This move was harshly criticized by Igor Dodon, whose party has the largest faction in Parliament and controls a quarter of the seats.
  • He stated: “We believe military exercises involving US troops on Moldovan territory is a flagrant violation of the constitutional principle of neutrality of Moldova. In this regard, the deputies from the Party of socialists have already initiated a number of procedures. They will continue, and this will be one of the reasons for introducing in May the initiative to dismiss the government.” By Victory Day it became apparent that the Nuland-Kogan-NATO plan for invasion of Moldova was foiled. All Americans could do was   to “crush” a Victory Day parade in the center of Moldova’s capital by coming uninvited and bringing their motorized vehicles to it. And that’s where NATO troops and Moldovan patriots came face to face. Pindos lost their freaking mind:  An American Colonel demands from the citizen of Moldova to leave the central square ПИНДОСЫ ОХРЕНЕЛИ В КОНЕЦ! Американский полковник предлагает покинуть центральную площадь Кишинева гражданину РМ pic.twitter.com/FfECO3NBXi — Серж Высоцкий (@Albertich50) May 12, 2016 An American Colonel demands from the citizen of Moldova to leave the central square
Paul Merrell

Wells Fargo fails to end U.S. mortgage fraud lawsuit | Reuters - 0 views

  • A federal judge has rejected Wells Fargo & Co's bid to dismiss a U.S. government lawsuit accusing the nation's largest mortgage lender of fraud, a victory for federal investigators pursuing cases tied to the recent housing and financial crises. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan said on Tuesday that the government may pursue its key federal claims that Wells Fargo lied about the quality of mortgages it submitted to a government insurance program, costing hundreds of millions of dollars over roughly a decade.In particular, Furman sided with the U.S. Department of Justice's interpretation of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989, a law adopted after the 1980s savings-and-loan crisis that lets the government sue for fraud affecting a federally-insured financial institution.Wells Fargo said the FIRREA claim should be tossed because the only institution affected by its conduct was itself.But Furman concluded otherwise, following the lead of two colleagues on the Manhattan federal court, Jed Rakoff and Lewis Kaplan, in cases against Bank of America Corp and Bank of New York Mellon Corp, respectively
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