Saturday, December 2, 2017

The other "senior" official

In the hours after Flynn admitted lying about his contacts with a Russian government official , two names surfaced as integral players in his actions.

Kushner was identified as a “very senior” transition official, who directed Flynn to contact foreign governments, including Russia, about a U.N. Security Council resolution last December. And KT McFarland, who served as Flynn’s deputy national security adviser, was a “senior” transition official involved in discussions with Flynn about what to relay to Sergey Kislyak, then Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., about the response to U.S. sanctions levied by the Obama administration.

  TPM
There's a name that hasn't come up in a very long time. Where is she now?






So, now we need to know what the Rosneft deal is, don't we?
Russian energy major Rosneft has agreed to take control of the main oil pipeline in Iraq's Kurdistan, further boosting its role as the main international investor in the semi-autonomous region.

The move is an apparent part of a broader strategy by President Vladimir Putin to ratchet up Moscow's political and economic influence in the Middle East.

[...]

With Rosneft acquiring 60 percent in the project, the Kremlin oil major effectively becomes a controlling stakeholder in Kurdish oil infrastructure.

  CNBC
MOSCOW, June 27 (Reuters) - Russia’s Rosneft, the world’s top listed oil producer by volumes, plans to open a trading office in Singapore, Chief Executive Igor Sechin said in an article published in Izvestia newspaper on Tuesday.

  Reuters
[Jan 24, 2017] More than a month after Russia announced one of its biggest privatizations since the 1990s, selling a 19.5 percent stake in its giant oil company Rosneft, it still isn’t possible to determine from public records the full identities of those who bought it.

The stake was sold for 10.2 billion euros to a Singapore investment vehicle that Rosneft said was a 50/50 joint venture between Qatar and the Swiss oil trading firm Glencore.

Unveiling the deal at a televised meeting with Rosneft’s boss Igor Sechin on Dec. 7, President Vladimir Putin called it a sign of international faith in Russia, despite U.S. and EU financial sanctions on Russian firms including Rosneft.

  Reuters
There's enough grist in this Russia-Trump investigation to support any number of conspiracy theories.

If all this shit comes down in Mueller's investigation, and if - or maybe that's "when" - Trump gets called in, I expect him to claim ignorance of what was going on.  And in that case, he will be pressed to tell who it was actually calling all the shots.  We may have a huge roster of indictable people before this is all done.

I always thought it would be the money laundering that gets Trump - and it may well be - but there's definitely a stink of Russia collusion (not in itself illegal) going on here.  If Trump's cabal was involved in undermining the Obama administration on Russian sanctions and other dealings, that surely is illegal, and Trump's hatred of Obama certainly puts him in the middle of it, even if not directing it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  A little history on K.T.'s short stint with the Trump team.

UPDATE:  It's not at all clear that K.T. McFarland is the other "senior" member referred to in the documents.  Apparently, it was Fox News that reported that.  And for that matter, it's not stated in them that Kushner is the "very senior" figure, either.

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