For weeks, pinned in by “thousands” of protesters with loud music, rocks, and ineffective gas bombs — many were “pro-Russian communists,” Doman said — the Marines hunkered down in a local sanitorium. And waited. They couldn’t reach their supply ship at the port; they couldn’t reach their base.

And they couldn’t accomplish their mission. The Marines eventually left, having achieved very little.“We basically waited out two weeks and under the cover of darkness one night got to an airstrip and flew home," Doman said. The protesters were happy, but “the civilian population was extremely sad when we left,” Col. Bill Black, the Marines’ CO, told us. “We were there to do some construction work, build a new soccer field, children’s play area.”

The NATO joint exercise was scrubbed altogether. President George W. Bush canceled a trip to Ukraine the following month. A few years later, the Russian nationalist fervor that confronted the U.S. Marines in Feodosia led to the crumbling of Ukraine’s government and Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Today, more than a decade after the siege on the Marines at Feodosia, evidence is gathering that an American citizen was being paid millions by the protest’s organizers to advise them on their political strategy. But he’s no ordinary American citizen: He’s Paul Manafort, longtime political money man, Trump Tower resident, and former manager of Donald Trump’s successful campaign for president.

Juha Keskinen
@MacFinn44
Richard LeFrak's (CEO of LeFrak/Trump's Infrastructure Adviser) N212LF has been in Florence/Pisa since 9/23/19
Igor Sechin's (CEO of Rosneft) M-YOIL was in Florence 9/25-9/26/19
Dmitry Rybolovlev's M-KATE flew to Rome today
Haven' had time to check the yachts yet.

Joanne Freeman
✔
@jbf1755
Wow.

Yesterday the FEC chair tried to publish their weekly journal & was blocked. She says that’s unprecedented

It has a draft rule re: foreign election interference

So she tweeted the ENTIRE journal.

Just putting that here...@KevinMKruse@HC_Richardson

H/T @PoliticusSarah https://twitter.com/ellenlweintraub/status/1177720217759297536
Ellen L Weintraub
✔
@EllenLWeintraub
Replying to @EllenLWeintraub @FEC
2/

This week, I published a “Draft Interpretive Rule Concerning Prohibited Activities Involving Foreign Nationals" on the http://fec.gov web site: https://www.fec.gov/documents/1796/mtgdoc_19-41-A.pdf

At least three senior White House officials, including the top lawyer for the National Security Council, were involved in the handling of intelligence files that were shared with the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and showed that Trump campaign officials were swept up in U.S. surveillance of foreign nationals, according to U.S. officials.

The White House role in the matter contradicts assertions by the committee’s chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), and adds to mounting concerns that the Trump administration is collaborating with the leader of the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Though White House officials have refused to answer questions about the documents shared with Nunes, the White House said in a letter to the House committee Thursday that it had “discovered documents” that might show whether information collection on U.S. persons was mishandled and was prepared to show them to lawmakers.

One of those involved in procuring the documents cited by Nunes has close ties to former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The official, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, survived a recent attempt to oust him from his White House job by appealing to Trump advisers Jared Kushner and Stephen K. Bannon, the officials said.

Saudi Aramco, the kingdom's state-owned oil behemoth, took 100% control of the sprawling Port Arthur refinery in Texas on Monday, completing a deal that was first announced last year.

Port Arthur is considered the crown jewel of the US refinery system. The Gulf Coast facility can process 600,000 barrels of oil per day, making it the largest refinery in North America.

Aramco previously owned 50% of Port Arthur through a joint venture co-owned with Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) called Motiva Enterprises.

...

In addition to Port Arthur, Aramco is acquiring full ownership of 24 distribution terminals. Aramco also gets the exclusive right to sell Shell-branded gasoline and diesel in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, the eastern half of Texas and the majority of Florida.

Deutsche Bank revealed Friday that it has the tax returns of two individuals that are covered under subpoenas from House committees investigating President Trump's finances.

The bank made the disclosure in a court filing, shedding more light on one of the cases involving efforts to obtain information about Trump's tax returns and financial information.

The tax returns in Deutsche Bank's possession were redacted in a court filing to protect the names of the individuals involved, but the filing narrows down the list of possible candidates, acknowledging that they are individual tax returns and not for Trump corporations or businesses.

"Based on Deutsche Bank's current knowledge and the results of the extensive searches that have already been conducted, the Bank has in its possession tax returns (in either draft or as-filed form) responsive to the Subpoenas for two individuals, not entities, named in the Subpoenas," the court filing reads.