Russia Russia Russia
In a piece describing how, after Trump attempted to publicly humiliate Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talks on normalizing relations with Russia (negotiated by Kirill Dmitriev, of Mueller Report fame) will accelerate…
There is also renewed optimism in Moscow that, with President Zelensky at odds with President Trump and his team, difficult negotiations to end the war in Ukraine will now take a back seat to a raft of potentially lucrative US-Russia economic deals already being tabled behind closed doors.
[snip]
Already the Kremlin’s key economic envoy to the talks, Kirill Dmitriev, has told CNN that cooperation with the US could “include energy” deals of some kind, but no details have been announced.
Separately, the Financial Times is reporting that there have been efforts to involve US investors in the restarting Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe, which Germany halted at the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Dmitriev has called for the Trump administration and Russia to start “building a better future for humanity,” and to “focus on investment, economic growth, AI breakthroughs,” and long-term joint scientific projects like “Mars exploration,” even posting a highly produced computer graphic, on Elon Musk’s X social media platform, showing an imagined joint US-Russia-Saudi mission to Mars, on board what appears to be a Space X rocket.
CNN described literal “bewilder[ment]” about why Trump would sell out America’s allies.
[W]hy the US president would choose the Kremlin over America’s traditional partners remains the subject of intense speculation.
Much of it, like the frequent suggestion that Trump is somehow a Kremlin agent, or beholden to Putin, is without evidence.
Perhaps the right-wing US ideological fantasy that Russia is a natural US ally in a future confrontation with China, and can be broken away from its most important backer, is motivating Washington’s dramatic geopolitical shift.
But for many bewildered observers, both explanations for Trump’s extraordinary pivot to the Kremlin seem equally misplaced. [my emphasis]
CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that Russia helped Trump win in 2016, after which Dmitriev reached out and discussed a bunch of investments — investments which would require ending sanctions — as a way to improve relations. CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that Russia attempted to help Trump win in 2020 at least by sending disinformation framing Joe Biden and his kid via Russian agent Andrii Derkach to Trump’s personal lawyer. CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that Derkach made similar efforts in 2024, and a bunch of Russian malign influence efforts (possibly including bomb threats that forced the evacuation of Democratic precincts) similarly aimed to help Trump and others who would “oppose aid to Ukraine.”
CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that a key Putin advisor, Nikolay Patrushev, said this in November:
In his future policies, including those on the Russian track US President-elect Donald Trump will rely on the commitments to the forces that brought him to power, rather than on election pledges, Russian presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev told the daily Kommersant in an interview.
“The election campaign is over,” Patrushev noted. “To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.”
He agreed that Trump, when he was still a candidate, “made many statements critical of the destructive foreign and domestic policies pursued by the current administration.”
“But very often election pledges in the United States can iverge [sic] from subsequent actions,” he recalled.
As people puzzle through this bewilderment, as people puzzle through why Trump appointed people who undermined the Russian investigation to lead the FBI, the boilerplate about what Robert Mueller discovered about Russia’s 2016 efforts to help Trump remains wildly inadequate, as in this recent version in a story on Don Bongino’s propaganda about the investigation.
Mueller’s inquiry found repeated contacts between Russia-linked entities and Trump campaign advisers, but didn’t establish a conspiracy between the two.
Mueller didn’t establish a conspiracy between Trump and Russia. But such boilerplate always leaves out that his key aides lied about the true nature of those contacts, which is a big reason why we wouldn’t know if there had been one.
In the Mueller investigation, Trump’s campaign manager, foreign policy advisor, National Security Adviser, personal lawyer, and rat-fucker were all adjudged to have lied about the true nature of Trump’s ties to Russia from the first campaign.
Let’s unpack that even further.
- Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, confessed to lying to hide the direct contact he had during the campaign with Dmitry Peskov’s office in pursuit of an impossibly lucrative Trump Tower deal, a deal that would have required lifting sanctions to complete. Cohen confessed to lying to cover up his conversations with Trump about that impossibly lucrative Trump Tower deal. His confession meant that when Trump disclaimed pursuing business deals with Russia — in the same July 27, 2016 press conference where he asked Russia to hack Hillary some more and said he might bless Russia’s seizure of Crimea — Trump lied to cover up that dangle for an impossibly lucrative Trump Tower deal.
- Trump’s foreign policy advisor, George Papadopoulos (who was overtly involved in Derkach’s efforts last year), confessed to lying about the timing and circumstances of learning that Russia had thousands of Hillary’s emails and planned to release them to hurt her campaign. He lied about the other Russians that Joseph Mifsud introduced to Papadopoulos. After he pled guilty, Papadopoulos remembered and then unremembered telling his boss on the campaign, Sam Clovis, about the emails. He also claimed to forget what his own notes describing a proposed meeting in September 2016 with Putin’s team pertained to (notes that also mentioned Egypt and involved Walid Phares, whom investigators suspected of having a role in any $10 million payment Egypt made to Trump).
- A jury found Trump’s rat-fucker, Roger Stone, guilty of lying to cover up the nature and source of his advance notice of the Russian hack-and-leak campaign. Over the course of the investigation, the FBI found evidence Stone knew of several of the Russian personas before they went public. There’s good reason to believe that Stone got advance knowledge, in mid-August 2016, of the substance of select emails from the later John Podesta leak. When prosecutors indicted Stone, they were very keen to obtain a notebook containing notes he took of all his conversations with Trump during the 2016 campaign. Stone stayed out of jail by repeatedly claiming prosecutors offered leniency to get knowledge of those contacts.
- Don Jr. refused to testify before a grand jury, an appearance that presumably would have included questions about his understanding of the June 9 meeting at which Aras Agalarov offered dirt on Hillary in exchange for sanctions relief.
- Amy Berman Jackson ruled that Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, reneged on his plea agreement, in part, by lying about his August 2, 2016 meeting with Konstantin Kilimnik, at which three topics were discussed: The campaign’s strategy to win swing states, how Manafort could get paid millions, and a plan to carve up Ukraine. In 2021, Treasury stated as fact that Kilimnik. was a “known Russian Intelligence Services agent” who had “provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy” during 2016. The report went on to explain that, “Kilimnik sought to promote the narrative that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” a narrative Trump keeps pushing.
- Trump’s National Security Adviser, Mike Flynn, confessed, twice, to lying about his efforts to undercut Barack Obama’s policy, including efforts to sanction Russia in response to the 2016 attack. There’s a good deal of evidence — including Flynn’s assurances to Sergey Kislyak that the “Boss is aware” — that Trump was involved in those efforts.
All of the people who lied to cover up the true nature of Trump’s Russian contacts in 2016, save Michael Cohen, were pardoned.
So was one other person — someone else who probably lied about the nature of Trump’s Russian contacts in 2017.
In the section describing his declination decisions, Mueller explained that there were three other people who probably lied, but whom he wasn’t charging.
We also considered three other individuals interviewed–[redacted]–but do not address them here because they are involved in aspects of ongoing investigations or active prosecutions to which their statements to this Office may be relevant.
The report itself and the 302s of Steve Bannon’s testimony, which evolved over the course of four interviews to more closely approximate the evidence, suggests Bannon could be one of those three (after all, Bannon, Trump’s other campaign manager, was a key witness at the Stone trial).
Not least because the report describes a pretty big discrepancy between Bannon’s testimony and Erik Prince’s regarding conversations the latter had with Kirill Dmitriev, now starring in negotiations about Russia. And both men played dumb about where the texts they exchanged in that period disappeared to.
Prince said that he met Bannon at Bannon’s home after returning to the United States in mid-January and briefed him about several topics, including his meeting with Dmitriev.1086 Prince told the Office that he explained to Bannon that Dmitriev was the head of a Russian sovereign wealth fund and was interested in improving relations between the United States and Russia.1087 Prince had on his cellphone a screenshot of Dmitriev’s Wikipedia page dated January 16, 2017, and Prince told the Office that he likely showed that image to Bannon.1088 Prince also believed he provided Bannon with Dmitriev’s contact information.1089 According to Prince, Bannon instructed Prince not to follow up with Dmitriev, and Prince had the impression that the issue was not a priority for Bannon.1090 Prince related that Bannon did not appear angry, just relatively uninterested.1091
Bannon, by contrast, told the Office that he never discussed with Prince anything regarding Dmitriev, RDIF, or any meetings with Russian individuals or people associated with Putin.1092 Bannon also stated that had Prince mentioned such a meeting, Bannon would have remembered it, and Bannon would have objected to such a meeting having taken place.1093
The conflicting accounts provided by Bannon and Prince could not be independently clarified by reviewing their communications, because neither one was able to produce any of the messages they exchanged in the time period surrounding the Seychelles meeting. Prince’s phone contained no text messages prior to March 2017, though provider records indicate that he and Bannon exchanged dozens of messages.1094 Prince denied deleting any messages but claimed he did not know why there were no messages on his device before March 2017.1095 Bannon’s devices similarly contained no messages in the relevant time period, and Bannon also stated he did not know why messages did not appear on his device.1096 Bannon told the Office that, during both the months before and after the Seychelles meeting, he regularly used his personal Blackberry and personal email for work-related communications (including those with Prince), and he took no steps to preserve these work communications.1097
The lies Trump’s top aides told to hide aspects of the 2016 Russian effort — his campaign manager, foreign policy advisor, National Security Adviser, personal lawyer, and rat-fucker — along with gaps left by both Jr and Bannon’s testimony (note, Bannon’s testimony also conflicts with Mike Flynn’s regarding whether he was privy to Flynn’s effort to undermine sanctions) trace out clear outlines of a quid pro quo: a serial agreement to reward Russia by acceding to carve up Ukraine and an agreement to lift sanctions, in exchange for help getting elected.
And here we are, eight years later, utterly bewildered why Trump might be in such a rush to deliver up Ukraine to Russia and lift sanctions to pursue business deals, precisely the quo outlined by the lies told years ago.
Really? How is anyone bewildered about this?
On November 11, one of Putin’s closest allies complained about how, “election pledges in the United States can [d]iverge from subsequent actions.” Patrushev warned that, this time, Trump will “be obliged to fulfill” his “corresponding obligations.”
And what we are seeing in real time, in plain sight, protected by an Attorney General who has promised to investigate neither the campaign assistance nor the bribery, is Trump picking up precisely where things left off in 2017.
Starting with the very same offers Dmitriev was offering eight years ago.
Willful ignorance.
On 12/29/16 Obama added sanctions to punish Russia for the election interference it ran to get Trump elected. One of the very first things Trump did in 2017 was attempt to repay Russia’s favor by lifting those and ALL (Magnitsky et al.) other sanctions. He would have, too, but Congress, overwhelmingly (the Senate vote was 98-2 (Mike Lee & Rand Paul, of course)), stopped him — adding even more sanctions (including on Iran & North Korea), and making it more difficult for the president thereafter to lift any sanctions without first going to Congress. Trump was forced to sign the bill but, in his signing statement, he asserted that some provisions were an unconstitutional imposition on presidential authority. We could easily see this matter contested again in coming months.
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I believe this is the FT story mentioned in the 1st CNN quote above
https://www.ft.com/content/dc9c51ab-03cb-47ba-ad0a-09c4deed9b50
Who are the US people & business men working with ex-Stasi agent Matthias Warnig to strike a deal to restart Nord Stream 2?
Some in the current administration are aware of this effort? And all the US businesses will do is collect money. Yeah right.
Although this seems like a miserable business proposition for many reasons, I hope others will read the article and provide insight.
Thank you Marcy for yet again hitting folks over the head with what we already know.
CNN did a report on the total lack of ANY economic reason to align closely with rusdia and forsake our partners. The entire Russian economy is equal to canada. But I’m guessing the individual generated generated trump and his cronies will massive.
I should have included in my original comment that sunshine works best early on.
Matthias Warnig is under U.S. sanctions. Based on his wikipedia entry, he has a long, close history with Putin and was formerly associated with Dredsner Bank in Germany. I can easily find American names from reputable sources also associated. I’ll file them away for a later date since speculation like that isn’t technically what we’re here for…
Also, if you do have or find a party of interest, you can search the archive here, too. I did & got results.
Time to poke around online and quickly found some clarity about Mr. Lynch. From 24 Nov., 2024
https://fact-news.com.ua/en/why-does-american-investor-lynch-need-the-bankrupt-nord-stream-2-gas-pipeline/
“American control over the gas pipeline can guarantee the Old World energy stability by preventing the use of the gas pipeline for political pressure on EU countries, expanding the supply of liquefied natural gas from the US, which will reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian energy resources, transparent and stable operation of the gas pipeline under the control of a neutral party.”
In reality US control of Nord Stream 2 could be used to pressure the EU or some members to decrease/stop support for Ukraine.
“To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.”
I.E: “… I will call upon you to do a service for me.”
So, military aid to Russia is coming soon?
That’s a remarkable statement/threat that you quote from Patrushev. If I didn’t know any better it would seem that there’s still some form of compromat that the Russians have on Trump!? s/
I think that Russia sees some profit in now sowing in the West the idea that Trump is compromised and an asset. Putin says over and over that his goal is to break up the western alliance.
Trump will almost certainly withdraw US from nato.
Disengaging the US from NATO would be Trump’s Vietnam debacle. It would be far easier to obstruct it from within rather than formally withdraw from membership. But Trump and Hegseth are dicks, so who knows.
Rubio knows all of this and more from report from Senate
Rubio also knows how USAID works and for what purposes it has been funded, and likely voted in favor of much of it. But now he acts brain dead.
He shouldn’t try so hard.
There is a good article in the Washington Post today that there is close to ZERO interest in the US and the EU to re-engage with Russia in ANY business deals. All Russia really has to trade is gas and oil and the EU wants none of it. They want LNG from Notth America, brought in through ports in the west coast of Spain and France, Italy and the Ukraine (Odessa). There is some reporting that an huge LNG port and storage facility was part of the “rare earth” deal and may have been a problem for Trump’s handler.
In any case, treating Russia favorably for trade purposes is a dead issue for most of the western world for the foreseeable future except in Trump’s demented brain. Nobody else trusts Putin, for good reason. Zelenskyy was yelled at because he stated the obvious. What Trump MAY not understand is that for most of the free world, Zelenskyy won the argument on Friday.
I’m wondering what it will take for the EU to begin initiating isolation measures against the US, given the extensive data that Marcy lays out here, and the patently obvious, hand-in-glove alignment with RU that Trump has already established. IOW, how can they possibly see us as anything but an adversary going forward.
Tariffs? Heightened security measures directed at US travelers?
I enjoy reading your stuff. Have for years. But it’s dense and you typically bury the lede, as here. It just can’t be shared widely.
This stuff is too important not to make it more accessible. A good editor would help a lot. Even just titles that explain the content. Please. You deserve broader influence.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. SECOND REQUEST: Please choose and use a unique username with a minimum of 8 letters. We have adopted this minimum standard to support community security. Because your username is too short and common it will be temporarily changed to match the date/time of your first known comment until you have a new compliant username. /~Rayne]
I debated approving your comment because it’s a dick move (read: trolling) to publish a comment like this which fails to engage the content of the post, criticizes an academic with a doctorate in literature for not writing to suit your personal tastes, and as the first comment under this post. Your intent appears to be derailing the conversation here — one might wonder why.
I let your comment age a bit and changed the publication time because fuck no, you are NOT going to be the first commenter.
Second, I’m going to point out your reading skills suck because you missed the moderation note on your one and only previous comment about obtaining a different username.
Third, let me suggest since you’ve now published two comments using an Italian ISP that you’re going to remain on an auto-moderation list until you learn how this community operates. We don’t suffer trolls here.
COMMUNITY MEMBERS: Please concentrate on the subject of the post. Don’t let your energy be redirected away from where it’s needed. Thanks.
As a community resource could you explain where such polite, constructive, and germane criticism(s) should be given and discussed (besides the Friday open thread)? Because I believe form as well as content is critical to the mission of educating others who may not frequent this site. Honestly not trying to hijack this post, reply privately and delete this if you must!
Hegseth orders US Cyber Command to cease operations against Russia
That’s a little obvious, even for this maladministration.
Even though Margaret Brennan said CBS had already confirmed the report, TX MAGA Rep Turner (who sits on Intel) took time out from blaming Zelenskyy to claim he hadn’t heard anything about it and it couldn’t possibly be true. So it appears the plan is for militant ignorance.
As for Zelenskyy, apparently the Russian version of 60 Minutes had already sketched out the scene in the Oval Office, so its clear it was a setup from the beginning.
That jumped out at me too when I read about this. So apparently they’re not giving us to the russians surreptitiously, but in broad daylight.
thank you for the article clearly out lines a lot.
What Trump is doing is simply crazy but when I look at it again, it all makes sense. He has a mission and he is sticking to the plan. As a kid I’d wonder how Russian would eventually defeat the U.S.A. and visa versa.
Now there is the perfect situation, stacked the Supreme Court, elected a President who one could describe as “ethically challenged”, some one who is the richest man in the world, and an opposition which hasn’t gotten with the agenda of how to win.. Its like a screen play but its the new reality in our world.
What Trump is doing to day ought not to be a surprise to anyone given his history. Its what I expected he’d do. What is surprising is how many are just letting it happen, hello Rubio. He just sat there.
Thank you again for your blog.
Literally the entire republican party has become Trump’s enablers. GOP is the definition of cult of personality.
Interesting that Saudi Arabia in an imagined joint US-Russia-Saudi mission to Mars.
It’s 95% desert, a perfect place to rename Mars and get Bush to proclaim “mission accomplished!”
Trump’s behavior re: Ukraine is not hard to explain with or without Putin holding any kompromat.
He is simply a sociopath and thus incapable of any empathy, not even for invaded, brutalized, oppressed people. He craves dominance and wants to be feared, and therefore he naturally identifies with the ruthless brutalizers — as we all observed also with Kim Jong Il and with Xi Jinping’s crackdown in Hong Kong.
That said, Don Jr.s 2008 comments (“we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia) and Eric’s 2014 comments (“we have all the funding we need out of Russia”) were never explained and just those comments alone hint at plenty enough embarassing/illicit financial ties with oligarchs that Trump would prefer to keep buried. Although I assume any statute of limitations have probably expired and elected Republicans would continue to cover up for him regardless of what came to light because they depend on voters from his cult.
https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-jr-said-money-pouring-in-from-russia-2018-2
https://thehill.com/homenews/news/332270-eric-trump-in-2014-we-dont-rely-on-american-banks-we-have-all-the-funding-we/
So, what happened in 1987 (or since) where Putin still has such a hold on Convict-1 / Krasnov? We’re talking about a POTUS who has shown he will screw anyone, discard and forget anyone, renege on any deal, stiff any business partner (including banks), and so on with the sole exceptions of Putin and MBS. I think the rest of the reporting is about symptomatic things until that question is answered. It has to be something so fundamental to C-1 / K’s id, his ‘Room 101’ (h/t Orwell) that this otherwise unscrupulous creature actually cares. My guess is still something financial, but 1987 to now is a long time to hide anything as juicy as being flat broke.
I think the only thing that Trump is afraid for is his own life and personal safety. Given that, he must have gotten into permanent hock to Putin & the boys when he was desperate in the early ’90s, so he plays ball, or else… I’ve seen all the documentaries; I’ll bet you have too, so all the talk about Trump being a CI, etc. is already out there. Only a physical threat makes sense to me.
We tend to think of sanctions as not very effective, we read about their being imposed, and then go on to the next news item. But sanctions prevents Russian oligarchs from spending their loot very easily. So removing sanctions is, for them personally, a very big deal. I don’t think Putin has specific Kompromat on Trump, at least, nothing very big. I think it’s what Marcy says: an impossibly lucrative deal that depends on sanctions being lifted. Claiming the mantle of peacemaker gives Trump the leverage, or the cover, depending on how you look at it, to get his trained rats in Congress to peck at the “lift sanctions” reward button.
For me the whole thing is intensely weird. The guy is nearly 80; how is he going to spend any of the money he has, let alone money he apparently wants to make? Unless, of course, he really believes he can take it with him.
For the very rich, the people who continue to accumulate money, it’s about Keeping Score.
I don’t understand it, either. They can’t spend all of it, they can’t take it with them, and it’s a burden most people wouldn’t want. Give it away, or stop complaining and pay taxes at the rates the rest of us have to use.
Energy deals mentioned are interesting. The crown jewels Capital has been wanting for a century. Sorry Wall Street. It will be insider deals. No messy Capitalism there. That’s why Trump loves Russia so much. The Boss says who gets the deals, and who doesn’t.
OK, I am old man yelling at clouds crackpot but I’ll say it anyway. The goal is to destroy market Capitalism. Where credit and deals are apportioned by the leader and the Party not the ‘market’ as now, as flawed as it is. Every major corporation in the world is debating; go along or not? Every day they wait they lose.
Hint, suits always choose Authoritarians.
‘We have all the funding we need out of Russia’ Eric Trump in 2014
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/eric-trump-russia-investment-golf-course?
See Trump Tower and also the real estate in Florida that he’s sold to Russians.
Bless you, Marcy (and Rayne)!
Please accept my apologies for being so repetitive.
He did not win either election.
it’s not a pee pee tape in 2024, it’s a Russian tail. ;^)
https://youtu.be/AWSWqn7UHYM
Here’s Bill Browder explaining what’s going on under the kayfabe, and how to finance Ukrainian security.
He really outs the smarmy egomaniac and Putin apologist Walter Isaacson & this was before the clown show on Friday.
https://youtu.be/96tHJgHExCk