DNC operative, Alexandra Chalupa harassed, car trashed, etc. after researching Manafort

[womanofthehills]

It was like a decomposed corpse washing up on the river bank during a massive flood. It came in the form of a brief, cryptic tweet in the whoosh of running online commentary on FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee: “After my sister visited Paul Manafort's hometown as part of her investigation: attempted home break-in, her phone/comp. Hacked, car trashed 2x.”

You had to be at least a part-time detective on the Trump-Russia beat to get the clues. The name of the tweeter, Andrea Chalupa, rang a bell. I looked her up. The sister she referenced was Alexandra, an operative for the Democratic National Committee who in 2015 had begun digging into the affairs of Donald Trump’s campaign chairman at the time, Paul Manafort. Since the bigtime D.C. lobbyist for developing world kleptocracies was close to pro-Russia elements in Ukraine, Chalupa began to suspect Moscow would have some sort of connection to the Trump campaign. She didn’t pay much attention at first, because Trump’s campaign was just a clown show. But then he got traction and she looked again. And then came the suspected Russian hacks of the DNC, including her own email account. Even stranger things began to happen, as her sister’s tweeted shorthand reminded everyone on Monday afternoon.

Yes, there had been an “attempted home break-in” last year, in her leafy, virtually crime-free neighborhood of northwest Washington, D.C., as Politico’s Kenneth P. Vogel and David Stern reported in January. Her iPhone was hacked, too, and a death-metal track popular in Russia appeared on her playlist. Her car was broken into and trashed twice, with nothing stolen. The second time, the burglar left a red, traditional Ukrainian blouse draped across the back seat. She reported the incidents to the D.C. police and FBI, which by then had opened a counterintelligence investigation into Russian subversion. No arrests have been made.

Related: FBI Director Comey confirms probe into possible Trump-Russia ties

More strange things have happened since, to her and some of her friends, that she’s not ready to go public about. But she did say that, like virtually everyone else in official Washington, she was glued to the TV Monday for the House Intelligence Committee hearing on Moscow’s campaign to destroy Hillary Clinton, put Donald Trump in the White House and rattle Americans’ faith in their core institutions. Over five and a half hours, the star witness of the astonishing event, FBI Director James Comey, absolutely obliterated the credibility of the increasingly unhinged president of the United States.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-comey-russia-stranger-things-571349

[Lucinda]

1. KNR Thank you!

[L. Coyote]

2. Reminds me of the Iran-Contra days.

Some of the same players too, Roger Stone, .....

[dalton99a]

3. Spicer: "There is no evidence suggesting Russian involvement in these crimes"

[womanofthehills]

4. I found more info on Alexandra Chalupa - she is the daughter of Ukranian immigrants

Manafort’s work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC’s arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.

A daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who maintains strong ties to the Ukrainian-American diaspora and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, Chalupa, a lawyer by training, in 2014 was doing pro bono work for another client interested in the Ukrainian crisis and began researching Manafort’s role in Yanukovych’s rise, as well as his ties to the pro-Russian oligarchs who funded Yanukovych’s political party.

In an interview this month, Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. While her consulting work at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing ethnic communities — including Ukrainian-Americans — she said that, when Trump’s unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump’s ties to Russia, as well.

She occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and Clinton’s campaign, Chalupa said. In January 2016 — months before Manafort had taken any role in Trump’s campaign — Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump’s campaign, “I felt there was a Russia connection,” Chalupa recalled. “And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election,” said Chalupa, who at the time also was warning leaders in the Ukrainian-American community that Manafort was “Putin’s political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446

[Maru Kitteh]

9. Excellent find. So she warned of Trump/Russia connection and predicted Manafort involvement

even before he joined the campaign.

[MelissaB]

5. Thread by her sister

linked here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028834638

[womanofthehills]

6. Probably everything her sister said in that thread is true

[aeromanKC]

7. Stay out of Tall Buildings!!

and small planes!!

[Cha]

8. Oh.. be safe investigative reporters

[Maru Kitteh]

10. Yes! We need them all. This thing has more loose ends than my favorite old sweater.

[spanone]

11. K&R...

[Ford_Prefect]

12. Does anyone recall that strange video from the day DU got hacked?

The one with the oddball images and soundtrack. This makes you wonder just where that came from, eh?

[iluvtennis]

13. Wow...just wow