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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhistleblower says Saudi Arabia & the Emirate of Abu Dhabi bought the 2016 election for Donald Trump
Andy Khawaja is charged with campaign finance violations. He says theres a bigger story
Paul Wood
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They fucked me, Paul, they fucked me. First, they destroyed my business. Now theyre coming after me. Andy Khawaja believes hes being persecuted because of what he knows. And what he knows, he tells me, is that Saudi Arabia and the Emirate of Abu Dhabi bought the 2016 election for Donald Trump.
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Khawaja claims the Saudis and the Emiratis illegally paid tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to the Trump campaign in 2016. He says that to keep it secret, they disguised the money as small donations from Americans, using stolen identities and virtual credit cards or gift cards donations of less than $200 do not have to be reported to the Federal Election Commission and made public. He claims the Saudis and the Emiratis were able to make thousands of such small donations at a time using the latest payment processing technology. Khawaja knows this, he says, because he sold the know-how to their middleman, George Nader, who will be the central character in this story.
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The Khawaja legend is that he grew up poor in Lebanon during the civil war, picking up bullet casings from the street to sell for scrap. He escaped at the age of 14, made his way alone to the United States and found his first job in a Wendys in New Jersey. Although his real first name is Ahmad, hes been Andy ever since he arrived. He worked as a cashier in a supermarket and eventually moved on to selling jackets on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles. Realizing that it was hard for shops to take payments from foreign credit cards, he then started a company, Allied Wallet, to make it easy. Payment processing is Khawajas business. He knows credit cards and he knows how to move money. He may also know how to move money secretly.
In early 2016, Khawaja wanted to create an online shopping mall for the Middle East, an Arab Amazon. He needed investors. Enter George Nader. Like Khawaja, Nader is Lebanese-American. His name might be familiar because he was a witness in the Mueller inquiry. In January 2017, Nader set up a meeting in the Seychelles that he apparently hoped would establish a back channel between the Trump administration and the Kremlin. Hes now awaiting sentence in the US, a convicted pedophile.
More: https://spectator.us/whistleblower-andy-khawaja-micropayments/
From Dec 2019
Link to tweet
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/california-ceo-and-seven-others-charged-multi-million-dollar-conduit-campaign-contribution
MelissaB
(16,420 posts)Iliyah
(25,111 posts)Funny how many stories are now coming out, especially the ones that say Russia was not involved. BS.
Roland99
(53,342 posts)Roland99
(53,342 posts)We've been waiting on more from this to drop. Looks like this is it.
Edited to say: Thanks for searching for those and linking them to this thread.
underpants
(182,788 posts)Much to read tonight.
Cirque du So-What
(25,933 posts)I wonder about the source. I thought the Spectator was a RW rag, so I was surprised to find this story in that publication.
stopdiggin
(11,302 posts)so which is it? Because .. there's a slight difference.
And if you don't know that ... What exactly DO you know?
(If this guy wants to give us the money trail to actual payments ... Great! Otherwise .. just another grifter with a story.)
triron
(22,001 posts)stopdiggin
(11,302 posts)I'll be happy to walk back a certain professed skepticism.
But in my case .. it'll take more than a headline with Trump's name on bold face.
Is this character cooperating with investigators .. or just shopping his story to the newspapers?
superpatriotman
(6,247 posts)Trump did, in fact, make his first foreign trip to Riyadh, in May 2017. And he did support the blockade of Qatar, which began in June 2017.
gibraltar72
(7,503 posts)Tomorrow.
wishstar
(5,269 posts)A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia indicted Ahmad Andy Khawaja, 48, of Los Angeles, California, on Nov. 7, 2019, along with George Nader, Roy Boulos, Rudy Dekermenjian, Mohammad Moe Diab, Rani El-Saadi, Stevan Hill and Thayne Whipple. The 53 count indictment charges Khawaja with two counts of conspiracy, three counts of making conduit contributions, three counts of causing excessive contributions, 13 counts of making false statements, 13 counts of causing false records to be filed, and one count of obstruction of a federal grand jury investigation. Nader is charged with conspiring with Khawaja to make conduit campaign contributions, and related offenses. Boulos, Dekermenjian, Diab, El-Saadi, Hill, and Whipple are charged with conspiring with Khawaja and each other to make conduit campaign contributions and conceal excessive contributions, and related offenses.
According to the indictment, from March 2016 through January 2017, Khawaja conspired with Nader to conceal the source of more than $3.5 million in campaign contributions, directed to political committees associated with a candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 election. By design, these contributions appeared to be in the names of Khawaja, his wife, and his company. In reality, they allegedly were funded by Nader. Khawaja and Nader allegedly made these contributions in an effort to gain influence with high-level political figures, including the candidate. As Khawaja and Nader arranged these payments, Nader allegedly reported to an official from a foreign government about his efforts to gain influence.
The indictment also alleges that, from March 2016 through 2018, Khawaja conspired with Boulos, Dekermenjian, Diab, El-Saadi, Hill, and Whipple to conceal Khawajas excessive contributions, which totaled more than $1.8 million, to various political committees. Among other things, these contributions allegedly allowed Khawaja to host a private fundraiser for a presidential candidate in 2016 and a private fundraising dinner for an elected official in 2018.
The indictment further alleges that, from June 2019 through July 2019, Khawaja obstructed a grand jury investigation of this matter in the District of Columbia. Knowing that a witness had been called to testify before the grand jury, Khawaja allegedly provided that witness with false information about Nader and his connection to Khawajas company. Boulos, Diab, Hill, and Whipple also are charged with obstructing the grand jurys investigation by lying to the FBI
Duppers
(28,120 posts)hedda_foil
(16,373 posts)George Nader and Hillary? At the end of last year? By Barr's justice department?????
triron
(22,001 posts)not the media.
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)many times as well
liberalla
(9,243 posts)Hermit-The-Prog
(33,340 posts)triron
(22,001 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)I seem to remember his tireless obsession to link Hillary Clinton's campaign to dirty Saudi lucre...
N_E_1 for Tennis
(9,721 posts)Duppers
(28,120 posts)https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/maddow-reveals-ways-saudis-uae-may-worked-help-trumps-2016-election/
Great to have Nader firmly nailed this!
iluvtennis
(19,852 posts)NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)that many of those small donations to Trump were from fake citizens and/or fake IDs making contributions via Russia (didn't think it was the Saudis at the time)
I had imagined it similar to how Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad shows Walter how to launder money through his kid's GoFundMe (or similar) account - mysterious computer generated small donations kept contributing to the "charity" collecting for Walter's cancer treatment.
joost5
(421 posts)The fire hose of tRump's daily corruption continues to etch the paint off our democratic institutions.
IMPEACH HIM 2.0!!
bucolic_frolic
(43,146 posts)Was that what all those invented credit card accounts were about? Was is a Well Fargo exec who axed? Any connection here to this story? Who's buying it this time? China?
Evolve Dammit
(16,725 posts)triron
(22,001 posts)Something smells.
Evolve Dammit
(16,725 posts)Wednesdays
(17,362 posts)NBachers
(17,108 posts)You know how turd's been saying "overturn the 2016 election" a lot? He has a habit of taking details of truth, and then trying to turn them around the opposite way. Whatever he's accusing people of, is really happening. But not the way he says it is.
This may be the information he knows will overturn the 2016 election, that he's trying to insert into the public lexicon, so when it is uncovered, it's already been poo-poo'd along a whole other phony storyline.
Initech
(100,068 posts)And we should stop pretending that they are. Our future is worth way more than a few drums of oil.