Jesus, the ineptitude

People who believe that Trump has been compromised by Russia might be forgiven for hanging onto that view.

The striking similarity between a newly released Treasury Department report of Russian oligarchs and a 2017 list of wealthy Russians published in Forbes magazine is no coincidence.

On Tuesday, a Treasury Department spokesperson confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the unclassified annex of the report was derived from Forbes’ ranking of the “200 richest businessmen in Russia 2017.”

[...]

Congress mandated the report [of an official accounting of Kremlin-linked political corruption] in a law President Trump grudgingly signed in August. At the time, the president called the legislation “seriously flawed.”

[...]

Almost all of the 96 oligarchs listed in the government-issued report, who each have a net worth of $1 billion or more, appear in the Forbes ranking. When asked if there is “any truth to the criticisms that the Treasury list was inspired or derived in some way from the Forbes list,” a Treasury spokesperson said “yes.”

  Buzzfeed

Was the Treasury spokesman not told what to say?

“The names of and net worth of oligarchs in the unclassified version of the report were selected based on objective criteria drawn from publicly available sources,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

We're busy taking vacations and counting money here in Treasury. We don't have time to do investigations.

Former Treasury officials said Congress is likely to react angrily if the classified report isn’t significantly more substantive, given the catch-all nature of the unclassified list, which includes friends of Vladimir Putin but also foes, such as billionaire brothers Aleksey and Dimitriy Ananyev, who’ve had their businesses seized in recent years.

Democrats maybe, but Congress, no. Congress, run by Republicans, is not going to react angrily to anything the Trump administration does as long as it is ultimately doing Republican business.

But many Russians breathed a sigh of relief following Treasury’s release of the report Monday night, which included statements from the Trump administration that it was not a sanctions list and the US was not applying new sanctions mandated by legislation at this time.

And if they'd actually come up with an actual list, they would have had to do something about it.  Even given Congressional edict to sanction Russia, the Trump administration has still done nothing.

Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Federation Council’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, said it appeared that the US administration “simply copied the Kremlin’s phonebook.” Putin, meanwhile, called the list an “unfriendly act,” but downplayed any need to retaliate.

No need to release the Pee Tape yet.

“Russia should be guided by the old rule: ‘The dog barks, but the caravan rolls on,’” he was quoted as saying.

I'll try to remember that phrase.

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