Regarding Rex Tillerson: A reminder

I wondered why Tillerson was resurfacing now - and less so why he was making out that he'd tried to rein in Trump unsuccessfully.  Now, after being reminded by Sarah Kendzior's podcast that Tillerson had serious Russia ties, I'm wondering if he's trying to soften the publicity that may be coming his way from the Mueller probe.

Here are some excerpts from a December 2016 CNN article on Tillerson.

In 2013, Vladimir Putin awarded ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson the Order of Friendship, one of the highest honors Russia gives to foreign citizens.

The silver badge underscores the close ties that have existed for many years between Russia and Tillerson, the leading candidate to be President-elect Donald Trump's secretary of state.

The 64-year-old Tillerson, a lifetime Exxon employee, came up through the ranks by managing the company's Russia account.

[...]

Once he became CEO, Exxon bet billions on Russia's vast but notoriously-elusive oil resources through a bold partnership with Russian oil giant Rosneft. Putin himself attended the 2011 signing ceremony for the deal with Rosneft, which is majority owned by Moscow.

[...]

In 2014, Exxon was hit hard by a round of U.S. and European Union sanctions that targeted Russia for its intervention in Ukraine. Exxon said it could have lost up to $1 billion due to the sanctions, according to regulatory filings.

Exxon would likely stand to gain if sanctions are lifted on Russia by the new administration.

  CNN Business

Exxon and Russia. The lifting of sanctions was the number one issue for Russia in its bid to get Trump elected.

And here are some excerpts from a New Yorker article this past March.

One subject that [Christopher] Steele is believed to have discussed with Mueller’s investigators is a memo that he wrote in late November, 2016, after his contract with Fusion had ended. This memo, which did not surface publicly with the others, is shorter than the rest, and is based on one source, described as “a senior Russian official.” The official said that he was merely relaying talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but what he’d heard was astonishing: people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trump’s initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney. [...] The memo said that the Kremlin, through unspecified channels, had asked Trump to appoint someone who would be prepared to lift Ukraine-related sanctions, and who would coöperate on security issues of interest to Russia, such as the conflict in Syria. If what the source heard was true, then a foreign power was exercising pivotal influence over U.S. foreign policy—and an incoming President.

As fantastical as the memo sounds, subsequent events could be said to support it. In a humiliating public spectacle, Trump dangled the post before Romney until early December, then rejected him. There are plenty of domestic political reasons that Trump may have turned against Romney. Trump loyalists, for instance, noted Romney’s public opposition to Trump during the campaign. Roger Stone, the longtime Trump aide, has suggested that Trump was vengefully tormenting Romney, and had never seriously considered him. [...] In any case, on December 13, 2016, Trump gave Rex Tillerson, the C.E.O. of ExxonMobil, the job. The choice was a surprise to most, and a happy one in Moscow, because Tillerson’s business ties with the Kremlin were long-standing and warm. [...] After the election, Congress imposed additional sanctions on Russia, in retaliation for its interference, but Trump and Tillerson have resisted enacting them.

  New Yorker

So, maybe Tillerson is trying to get out ahead of some bad news.

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

The second Steele dossier

This comes Charlie Pierce blogging about Jane Mayer's piece about Christopher Steele, which I still haven't completed reading.

In the piece, Mayer reveals the existence of a second dossier prepared by Steele in which the president* is accused, essentially, of letting Russian officials have a veto over the people he picked for his candidate. (Jesus, Russians, couldn’t you have stepped in on Zinke or DeVos. Give a brother a break here.)

  Charles P Pierce

This was the claim that the Kremlin blocked Trump's first choice for Secretary of State to be Mitt Romney, who has always seen Russia as the world's bogeyman (or as we here in the middle of nowhere say, boogie man).

Leaving aside the fact that this story has Mitt Romney at its center as a hero, which, albeit, is a very hard concept to grasp, can we all stop pretending now that the current president* isn’t at least half a Russian asset? He hasn’t done a single thing to prove otherwise. And the guy he picked instead of Romney, the Putin-decorated oilman Rex Tillerson, is proving to be less of an impediment to the Volga Bagmen than the usual Secretary of State would be.

[...]

The Congress earmarked $120 million for the State Department to use to counter [Russia's] continuing assault on the country [in this year's midterms]. Of that money, Tillerson and his undermanned operation have spent exactly zero dollars, according to The New York Times.

[...]

Mr. Tillerson has voiced skepticism that the United States is even capable of doing anything to counter the Russian threat. “If it’s their intention to interfere, they’re going to find ways to do that,” Mr. Tillerson said in an interview last month with Fox News. “And we can take steps we can take, but this is something that once they decide they are going to do it, it’s very difficult to pre-empt it.”

Well, fck it, then. Let’s all go get a beer.

I can’t think of one administration in my lifetime that wouldn’t have thrown Tillerson out the window for saying something like that and then fired him before he hit the pavement.

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



Do you ever wonder how the White House communications people decide what to lie about and what to avoid lying about? I can't figure it out.