ᴛʜᴇ ꜰɪɢʜᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴜɴꜱᴇᴀʟ ꜰᴇʟɪx ꜱᴀᴛᴇʀ'ꜱ ꜰɪʟᴇꜱ

I find the whole story behind the fight to unseal Felix Sater's records interesting. There are quite a few who seem to not have a full grasp of how this went down.

I'll start with the cast of characters.

Felix Sater - himself
Josh Bernstein - Bayrock IT employee
Jody Kriss - Bayrock CFO
Richard Lerner - lawyer
Fred Oberlander - lawyer
Paul Cassell - former Federal judge
Loretta Lynch - (prior) Chief Asst. U.S. Atty EDNY
Orrin Hatch - (then) Senator

Andrew Weissman - Sater's coop. agrmt 1998
Judge Glasser - handled Sater's case 1998-now
House Committee members, 2013, Victims Rights hearing

Per Sater's own LinkedIn page, his work with Bayrock Group, LLC began in Jan 1999. Yes, he signed FBI coop. agrmt Dec 1998...

Per Sater's public records, court docs, and the now-released 5K1 letter (finally unsealed Aug 2019), we know the following pieces of information:

*all sources will be referenced at end of thread

Sater's work w/Bayrock closely followed cooperation w/FBI
Sater's work included BOTH Italian AND Russian org. crime
Loretta Lynch and Andrew Weissman were both involved w/ Sater's initial cooperation

It's with these facts we begin the story of Sater's files at Bayrock....

Felix kept either digital or paper copies (unclear) in his Bayrock office and on their server so when his lawyer called, he'd have them for reference. (It is also disclosed he didn't want his family to come across them.)

Enter Josh Bernstein, Bayrock IT guy.

Josh reads them and decides to take them when he leaves Bayrock, or already had them at his house in case he was fired to use as information. Who knows.

Regardless, we know sometime 2007-08 the files were taken by Bernstein because the result is a leak to a NYT reporter.

A Dec 2007 article in the NYTimes and another in 2008 result in Sater's criminal past and history as a cooperator becoming a factor of the subsequent Trump SoHo lawsuit later in 2011.

To cut out some of the long[er] version of this story, I'm going to summarize.

Jody Kriss is the alleged leaker to NYT in late 2007 and the guy who kept Felix tied up in courts for years. I've covered him previously. He's not that important. Just think of him as the jerk who seemed to have a vested interest in having Felix's files unsealed.

Prior court record details from later (2015) writ to Supreme Court on Jody Kriss https://twitter.com/supersleuthgrl/status/1212478749205286919?s=20

Somehow these two lawyers Oberlander and Lerner get involved in this case. It's unclear if Kriss is paying them or if they are truly representing any actual victims in the stock case as they moved to take this all the way to the SC in 2015. They fought this for years.

This is Judge Glasser after hearing both sides argue, appeal after appeal until final SC hearing/ruling+other details.(Older followers, pls bear w/me. Thread will include further details I've never covered when Paul Cassell enters picture.)
Note these filesunsealed 2011.

All unsealed in 2011 as part of Court trying to unseal what they could as Lerner and Oberlander continue their court battle. Other files also unsealed in later years leading up to 5K1 DOJ 2009 sentencing letter released to the public in Aug 2019.

(Cont.) Also, one thing to also keep in mind re: Jody Kriss' allegations in his Bayrock lawsuits about money laundering is he was the company's CFO. He was their finance guy. There are no details provided in his allegations how money was being laundered w/o his knowledge.

I'm not going to go thru anymore of that. Find and read if interested.

Where this tale gets more interesting is those two lawyers involve a former federal judge named Paul Cassell in this saga alleging stock fraud victims rights violations, Cassell's niche.

What stands out is I cant find any articles with victims ever being interviewed over years, upset and angry. Not in 2000 when those involved got indicted. Not later when these two lawyers, and later Cassell in 2012-13 are supposed to be defending these victims.

I find this odd.

One assumes this would generate great publicity towards their cause; bring victims who were violated out from the shadows and speak about the money they lost, how they wanted it back.

*Ex. of what these lawyers were like
- footnote in writ to Supreme Court vs. book excerpts

Note how they worded and interpreted it for the Supreme Court, what they chose to actually include in quotes, versus the actual sections of the book being referenced.

So, before these two lawyers end up appealing to the Supreme Court in early 2015, Paul Cassell gets involved.

Paul doesn't know when to quit, either. (begins pg 178-link to hearing at end) In Apr 2012, he begins asking if he can speak regarding "John Doe" case because of the fact it's sealed.

Here's how he described this process for this hearing:

Note how he states he didn't really get permission to deliver testimony in 2012. Again in 2013, it was a special request from someone (who?) for him to attempt again to speak regarding the "John Doe" aka Felix Sater case. I'm kind of impressed by how little these three guys seem

to really care about the victims who aren't even named. Also, what was unsealed in 2011 showed Sater was an asset for the US government. For being a federal judge, it's unclear why he never took the hint. Regardless, he took the opportunity in 2013 to throw Lynch under the bus.

FF to Lynch's nomination hearing for AG and it's Senator Orrin Hatch, one of her GOP supporters even though she was an Obama pick, recommending she answer the allegations Cassell had made regarding violations of victims rights in Sater's case. Now before I move to her statement

I want to include an interesting detail we at least know from Sal Lauria's case, which was incl. as detail in the SC writ by lawyers Lerner and Oberlander. It details the govt defense of Lauria in the transcript of his case and only 15-20 victims came fwd to make claims.

It's unclear how a stock fraud scheme which occurred 1993-1996 is still being fought over for victims rights during a House Committee hearing in 2013 if only 15-20 of supposed thousands of victims who lost money were coming forward to make claims at the point here of ~2004.

After making that point, let's review Lynch's statement back to Cassell at Sen. Hatch's urging. Most of the time if the statement is referenced in news articles re: Sater, it's only first paragraph. Here's full version.

After Lynch provides her statement, Sater provides his statement through lawyer calling it a "failed attempt."

Since the unsealing of most of Sater's files in Aug 2019 including the 5K1 letter which only detailed his work for US intel agencies through his sentencing in 2009...

I'd like to know if Lerner, Oberlander, or even Cassell have read it and if they now have a clearer understanding of why his records might have needed to be sealed. Let's look high-level at what we know of SOME of Sater's work for the US govt compared to his employment.

What do you think? Should the government have unsealed Sater's files earlier or were they correct in keeping them sealed as long as they did?

Sources:
Sater unsealed files 
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4406683-Sater-Unsealed.html

Writ
https://realcontextnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Palmer-Petition-for-a-writ-of-certiorari-14-676-1.pdf

Committee Hearing https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-113hhrg80543/pdf/CHRG-113hhrg80543.pdf

Lynch Full Response 
http://c6.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/Lynch%20response%20to%20Hatch%20(1).pdf

Sater Response thru lawyer https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/felix-sater-statement-on-loretta-lynch-nomination-300037102.html

Sater 5k1 Letter https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6328381-Felix-Sater-5K1-letter.html