Georgian Businessman Releases Texts With Cohen That Were Left Out Of Mueller Report

A Georgian-American businessman is calling for a retraction of a footnote in the special counsel’s report that refers to a text message exchange with Michael Cohen about a rumored Trump sex tape.

Giorgi Rtskhiladze’s lawyer sent a letter to the attorney general claiming that the Mueller report has “glaring inaccuracies.”

The report quoted a text message in which Rtskhiladze told Cohen he was “stopping the flow” of tapes of Trump. But in a text message left out of Mueller’s report, Rtskhiladze suggested he did not believe the rumor.

A Georgian-American businessman is accusing special counsel Robert Mueller of publishing “glaring inaccuracies and misrepresentations” about rumors of alleged sex tapes of President Donald Trump during a visit to Moscow in 2013. In a letter sent to Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday, a lawyer for the businessman, Giorgi Rtskhiladze, called on the Justice Department to retract a footnote in Mueller’s report mentioning an Oct. 30, 2016 text message exchange he had with attorney Michael Cohen about a rumored Trump tape. Rtskhiladze claims that the special counsel’s report inaccurately quotes his text message with Cohen. He says that additional text messages not quoted in the report show that he was doubtful about a rumor he had heard from an associate in Moscow about the existence of a tape. “We strongly demand that a full and immediate retraction of these falsehoods should be issued forthwith to restore his good name,” wrote A. Scott Bolden, a lawyer for Rtskhiladze. The letter was first reported by Bloomberg News and obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. Bolden’s letter takes issue with several parts of the the special counsel’s report, including the quote of Rtskhiladze’s text message as reading: “Stopped flow of tapes from Russia but not sure if there’s anything else. Just so you know.” Rtskhiladze actually wrote that he had “stopped flow of some tapes,” the text messages show.

Rtskhiladze told prosecutors during interviews in 2018 that he was told that the tapes were fake but that he did not communicate that to Cohen, according to Mueller’s report. Cohen told Mueller’s team in a Sept. 12, 2018 interview that he notified Trump about the message from Rtskhiladze. Rtskhiladze claims that his additional texts with Cohen show that he had no direct knowledge of the tapes and that he saw them as mere rumor, rather than fact. Bolden also says that Rtskhiladze did not hear the rumor first-hand. “Not sure of the content but person in Moscow was bragging had tapes from Russia trip. Will try to dial you tomorrow but wanted to be aware. I’m sure it’s not a big deal but there are lots of stupid people,” Rtskhiladze wrote in the texts, which were provided to TheDCNF. “You have no idea,” Cohen replied. Rtskhiladze responded: “I do trust me.” Bolden says in the letter that Rtskhiladze was not present at the event in Moscow where the claim about the tape was allegedly

Melanie Bonvicino, a spokeswoman for Rtskhiladze, told TheDCNF that he has not been in Russia in more than a decade. She said that Rtskhiladze does not know who made the comment at the Moscow party, but that he heard about it from another person. Rtskhiladze identified the intermediary during interviews with Mueller’s team. Rtskhiladze has also voluntarily agreed to meet with the House Intelligence Committee, Bonvicino said. The footnote in the special counsel’s report reignited speculation about the most salacious allegation contained in the infamous Steele dossier. In the unverified report, author Christopher Steele alleged that the Kremlin had video of Trump with a group of prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room during his visit there in November 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant.

Trump has vehemently denied taking part in the activities described in the dossier, and such a tape has never been produced. Steele’s alleged source for the claim has also come under intense scrutiny. People who were with Trump during his visit to Moscow have doubted the claims about the tape, saying that he only stayed one night in the Russian capital and was only alone for a few hours.

https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/04/24/giorgi-rtskhiladze-texts-cohen-mueller/

Giorgi Rtskhiladze letter to DOJ

https://www.scribd.com/document/407493978/Giorgi-Rtskhiladze-letter-to-DOJ#from_embed

Facebook Anticipates Fine Of Up To $5 Billion

Facebook is anticipating a multi-billion dollar fine from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over their handling of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, according to The Hill. The company disclosed to investors in its quarterly earnings report that they have already put $3 billion aside for this on Wednesday, adding that they haven’t reached a settlement with the FTC, and are unsure when this will be resolved.

The fine could be as high as $5 billion, according to The New York Times. “People want to use both private and public platforms,” Zuckerberg said on a conference call Wednesday, according to CNN. “Delivering this is both in the interests of our community and our business.” “Last month, I said that a fine in the low billions of dollars would amount to a slap on the wrist for Facebook,” tweeted Democratic Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, who chairs a House antitrust subcommittee. “Tonight, we learned that’s how Wall Street sees it too — as a slap on the wrist. If the FTC won’t act, Congress has to.”'''

The penalty, which has been discussed for months now, would be an FTC record against a technology company. Their investigation began a year ago after it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that worked with the Trump campaign, had obtained Facebook user data on millions of people without their knowledge or consent.

Paul Grewal, Facebook’s vice president and deputy general counsel, provided insight into the situation in a March 2018 blog post: In 2015, we learned that a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge named Dr. Aleksandr Kogan lied to us and violated our Platform Policies by passing data from an app that was using Facebook Login to SCL/Cambridge Analytica, a firm that does political, government and military work around the globe. He also passed that data to Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies, Inc. Like all app developers, Kogan requested and gained access to information from people after they chose to download his app. His app, “thisisyourdigitallife,” offered a personality prediction, and billed itself on Facebook as “a research app used by psychologists.” Approximately 270,000 people downloaded the app. In so doing, they gave their consent for Kogan to access information such as the city they set on their profile, or content they had liked, as well as more limited information about friends who had their privacy settings set to allow it.

The blog post came as Facebook announced that it is suspending their work with Cambridge Analytica.

https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/04/24/facebook-ftc-cambridge-analytica/