Donald Trump was communicating via Twitter with Russian power couple even before November 2013
Just as a brief primer. Artem Klyushin is--depending on sources--either a Russian oligarch or someone who works on behalf of Russian oligarchs. He lists himself as having some affiliation with the Russian government, and is a longtime critic of US sanctions against Russia.
His former wife is Yulya Alferova. It's not sure how long they were married but they were definitely together in November 2013 when Donald Trump held his Miss USA pageant in Moscow.
Klyushin and Alferova were both close friends with Emin Agalarov, both a pop singer and one half of a father-son Russian real estate magnate team. The Agalarovs hosted Trump and his November 2013 Miss Universe pageant, where Emin filmed a music video with Trump and also where the notorious rumored golden shower incident took place.
You'll also remember that the Agalarovs--via Emin's agent Ron Goldstone--are the one who later pitched the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Russian agents and Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner where dirt on Hillary Clinton was promised.
Klyushin and Alferova both managed to be at Trump's side heavily throughout his November 2013 visit:
While this could have been due to close access provided by their buddy Emin, it should be noted that Donald Trump actually communicated with Klyushin and Alferova even before coming to Russia.
On September 20, 2013, Trump sent a message to Klyushin's now defunct English language Twitter handle, telling him when he would be in Moscow:
Link to tweet
And Emin actually revealed to Alferova and Klyushin that he had big plans regarding Trump the day before the Miss USA pageant was announced:
Link to tweet
Why is this interesting? Well, a couple of reasons.
First, very shortly after the Miss USA pageant, Alferova begun to heavily promote Trump as a Presidential candidate:
Link to tweet
?lang=en
Secondly, Klyushin himself is close friends with Konstantin Rykov. Rykov--a former Russian Duma member and someone who has been described as the Kremlin's biggest online propagandist--described on Facebook just days after the 2016 election how he supposedly lead a massive online propaganda campaign (utilizing Cambridge Analytica data) to bolster's Trump campaign in the US. Rykov claims he was inspired after supposedly seeing a picture of a smiling Trump giving a thumbs up on Election Day 2012. (I've written about Rykov's boastings on numerous occasions here at DU).
Klyushin would call Rykov a "genius" on Election Day 2016:
He also attended an Election night party Rykov hosted in Moscow.
On Twitter, Seth Abramson and Scott Stedman have both focused heavily on these characters. I think it's very important to point out that they all appear to have a long standing relationship with one another and they appear to have had advance knowledge of Trump's plans before he made them publically known.
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