Tightening up the conspiracy case

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has gathered evidence that a secret meeting in Seychelles just before the inauguration of Donald Trump was an effort to establish a back channel between the incoming administration and the Kremlin.

   WaPo

And jackass extraordinaire Erik Prince has already testified that he just happened to bump into a Russian official - Kirill Dmitriev, the head of a Russian government-controlled wealth fund - while he was there - nothing to do with fixing up Trump with the Russians.

George Nader, a Lebanese American businessman who helped organize and attended the Seychelles meeting, [and who has begun cooperating with Mueller's team] has testified on the matter before a grand jury gathering evidence about discussions between the Trump transition team and emissaries of the Kremlin, as part of Mueller’s investigation into Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election.

Nader began cooperating with Mueller after he arrived at Dulles International Airport in mid- January and was stopped, served with a subpoena and questioned by the FBI.

Whatever the meeting was meant to do, the back-channel desired by the Trump cabal was probably as much to do with financing some Trump project as anything. Presumably in exchange for dropping sanctions.  Or perhaps just because Trump kept saying during the campaign that he had no business interests in Russia, and he wanted to keep any future dealings quiet.

The UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, a Trump administration objective, according to U.S., European and Arab officials. Such a concession by Moscow would have been likely to require the easing of U.S. sanctions on Russia, which were imposed for Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in 2014, those officials said.

But why would that require a back channel? The meeting occurred in January 2017, after Trump was president. Why would those types of negotiations not be part of US state business? What's the State Department for anyway? This was something private with Prince and Trump.

In his statements, Prince has specifically denied reporting by The Washington Post that said the Seychelles meeting, which took place about a week before Trump’s inauguration, was described by U.S., European and Arab officials as part of an effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and the incoming administration.

[...]

[Prince] according to people familiar with the Seychelles meeting, [...] presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his discussion with the Russian official.

Somebody will be wanting to reinterview Mr. Prince.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway. UPDATE 9/27: A memo has been leaked about the Seychelles meeting.