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phroyd · 5 years ago

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Donald Trump and the political action committees for Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich and John McCain accepted $7.35 million in contributions from a Ukrainian-born oligarch who is the business partner of two of Russian president Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs and a Russian government bank.

Yet there may be another reason that top Republicans have not been more vocal in their condemnation. Perhaps it's because they have their own links to the Russian oligarchy that they would prefer go unnoticed.

During the 2015-2016 election season, Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonard "Len" Blavatnik contributed $6.35 million to leading Republican candidates and incumbent senators. Mitch McConnell was the top recipient of Blavatnik's donations, collecting $2.5 million for his GOP Senate Leadership Fund under the names of two of Blavatnik's holding companies, Access Industries and AI Altep Holdings, according to Federal Election Commission documents and OpenSecrets.org.

Marco Rubio's Conservative Solutions PAC and his Florida First Project received $1.5 million through Blavatnik's two holding companies. Other high dollar recipients of funding from Blavatnik were PACS representing Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker at $1.1 million, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham at $800,000, Ohio Governor John Kasich at $250,000 and Arizona Senator John McCain at $200,000.

In January, Quartz reported that Blavatnik donated another $1 million to Trump's Inaugural Committee. Ironically, the shared address of Blavatnik's companies is directly across the street from Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in New York.

Len Blavatnik, considered to be one of the richest men in Great Britain, holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and the U.K. He is known for his business savvy and generous philanthropy, but not without controversy.

In 2010, Oxford University drew intense criticism for accepting a donation of 75 million pounds from Blavatnik for a new school of government bearing his name. Faculty, alumni and international human rights activists claimed the university was selling its reputation and prestige to Putin's associates.

Blavatnik's relationships with Russian oligarchs close to Putin, particularly Oleg Deripaska, should be worrisome for Trump and the six GOP leaders who took Blavatnik's money during the 2016 presidential campaign. Lucky for them no one has noticed. Yet.

Oleg Deripaska is the founder and majority owner of RUSAL, the world's second largest aluminum company, based in Russia. Len Blavatnik owns a significant stake in RUSAL and served on its Board until November 10, 2016, two days after Donald Trump was elected.

Deripaska controls RUSAL with a 48 percent majority stake through his holding company, EN+ Group, and the Russian government owns 4.35 percent stake of EN+ Group through its second-largest state owned bank, VTB. VTB was exposed in the Panama papers in 2016for facilitating the flow of billions of dollars to offshore companies linked to Vladimir Putin and is under sanctions by the U.S. government.

Deripaska has been closely connected to the Kremlin since he married into Boris Yeltsin's family in 2001, which literally includes him in the Russian clan known as "The Family."According to the Associated Press, starting in 2006, Deripaska made annual payments of $10 million to Paul Manafort through the Bank of Cyprus to advance Putin's global agenda.

Len Blavatnik's co-owner in RUSAL is his long-time business partner, Viktor Vekselberg, another Russian oligarch with close ties to Putin. Blavatnik and Vekselberg hold their 15.8 percent joint stake in RUSAL in the name of Sual Partners, their offshore company in the Bahamas. Vekselberg also happens to be the largest shareholder in the Bank of Cyprus.

Another oligarch with close ties to Putin, Dmitry Rybolovlev, owns a 3.3 percent stake in the Bank of Cyprus. Rybolovlev is known as "Russia's Fertilizer King" and has been in the spotlight for several months as the purchaser of Trump's 60,000 square-foot mansion in Palm Beach. Rybolovlev bought the estate for $54 million more than Trump paid for the property at the bottom of the crash in the U.S. real estate market.

The convoluted web that links Putin's oligarchs to Trump's political associates and top Republicans is difficult to take in.

Trump and Putin have a common approach to governance. They rely heavily on long-term relationships and family ties. While there have been tensions between Putin and Deripaska over the years, the Kremlin came to Deripaska's rescue in 2009 when he was on the verge of bankruptcy by providing a $4.5 billion emergency loan through state-owned Vnesheconombank (VEB), where Putin is chair of the advisory board.

VEB, known as President Putin's "pet bank," is now in crisis after sanctions applied by Europe and U.S. in 2014 have isolated it from the international banks that were the sources of its nearly $4 billion in hard currency loans that, according to Bloomberg, mature this year and in 2018.

Russia's international currency reserves are near a 10-year low, which has put further pressure on the president of VEB, Sergey Gorkov, to find sources of international rescue capital. Notably, it was Gorkov who met secretly with Jared Kushner in December at Trump Tower. Kushner's failure to report the meeting with Gorkov has drawn the attention of the Senate intelligence committee that now wants to question Kushner about the meeting.

Ruth May is a business professor at the University of Dallas and an expert on the economies of Russia and Ukraine. She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News. Twitter: @ruthcmay

Phroyd

#trump #russia #ukraine #gop

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ritchiepage2001newaccount · 6 years ago

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#CorpMedia #Idiocracy #Oligarchs #MegaBanks vs #Union #Occupy #NoDAPL #BLM #DACA #SDF #Humanity

THE PANAMA PAPERS, THE PARADISE PAPERS AND RELATED REVELATIONS

WATCH The true story behind the secret 9-month Paradise Papers investigation

https://news.vice.com/story/the-true-story-behind-the-secret-9-month-paradise-papers-investigation

After nine months of secret collaboration, a global team of over 380 investigative journalists released the findings of one of the largest troves of leaked documents in history last week: the Paradise Papers...

[VIDEO] The True Story Behind The Secret Nine-Month Paradise Papers Investigation (HBO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8mdNahdo4M

This segment originally aired on November 6, 2017, on VICE News Tonight on HBO...

The Panama Papers · ICIJ

https://panamapapers.icij.org/

[VIDEO] About the Panama Papers

http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/56febff0a1bb8d3c3495adf4/

Paradise Papers: Secrets of the Global Elite - ICIJ

https://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/

Panama Papers: a special investigation

https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/panama-papers

Paradise Papers: a special investigation

https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/paradise-papers

Panama Papers

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-35934836

Panama Papers

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/panama-papers

THE PANAMA PAPERS, THE PARADISE PAPERS AND RELATED REVELATIONS - A TIMELINE

June 22, 2010 'The greatest libertarian show on earth' will feature 'Escape from America' financial advice

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/06/the_greatest_libertarian_show.html

FreedomFest, the annual libertarian gathering in Las Vegas, will offer a seminar titled “Escape from America: The Five Steps to Financial Freedom,” conducted by the Sovereignty Society. No surprise or scandal here -- this is a topic libertarians have discussed for years. But it's an amusing difference between libertarians and the rising “tea party” movement, which will be saluted at several other Freedom Fest events. The Sovereignty Society's site is chock-full of tips on which sovereign funds to invest in ("If you retreat to these 6 Ponzi-Proof investments right now, your wealth could multiply 3-5 fold, even as millions of Americans watch their retirement accounts go up in smoke.") and essays like this one from "wealth preservation and privacy expert" Mark Nestmann on the financial benefits of giving up American citizenship...

(((((((((((( The above article contains links to sources that have been moved or hidden by the authors, but were not all that hard to track down elsewhere:

FreedomFest 2018

https://www.freedomfest.com/

October 2009 The BEST Tax Break for U.S. Citizens

http://sovereignsociety.com/archives/the-sovereign-society-october-2009/#tax

June 16, 2010 Why I gave up my U.S citizenship

http://www.thedominican.net/why-i-gave-up-my-us-citizenship.html ))))))))))))

Apr 23, 2015 Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html

The headline on the website Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when its precursor served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”...

3 April 2016 Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/panama-papers-money-hidden-offshore

A massive leak of documents shines new light on the fabulous fortunes of the Russian president’s inner circle...

5 April 2016 What are the Panama Papers? A guide to history's biggest data leak

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-panama-papers

What is Mossack Fonseca, how big is it, and who uses offshore firms? Key questions about one of the biggest ever data leaks...

Apr 6, 2016 Panama Papers: The Real Scandal Is What's Legal

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/panama-papers-crimes/477156/

Mossack Fonseca kept its clients largely on the right side of the law. Indeed, that’s entirely the point...

Apr 07, 2016 Podesta Group Connected to Bank Named in Panama Papers

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/7/1512166/-Podesta-Group-Connected-to-Bank-Named-in-Panama-Papers

Whatever the fallout that comes, John and Tony Podesta are connected with a shady Russian Bank named in the Panama Papers...

04/07/16 Panama Papers Reveal Clinton’s Kremlin Connection

http://observer.com/2016/04/panama-papers-reveal-clintons-kremlin-connection/

John and Tony Podesta aren’t fooling anyone...

Apr 8, 2016 With Saudi and Russian ties, Clinton machine’s tentacles are far reaching, according to Panama Papers

http://www.salon.com/2016/04/08/with_saudi_and_russian_ties_clinton_machines_tentacles_are_far_reaching_according_to_panama_papers/

The Podesta Group, a lobbying firm headed by Clinton operatives, has made a pretty penny working for Saudi & Russia...

05/10/2016 Panama Papers Leak: Donald Drumpf, Vladimir Putin and Others on the List

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gobankingrates/panama-papers-leak-donald_b_9897812.html

On Monday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released a searchable database of its Panama Papers. The database allows users to search through the Panama Papers and other records for individuals and corporations that might be using foreign shell companies and offshore accounts to keep financial information private...

JUNE 5, 2016 Panama Papers Show How Rich United States Clients Hid Millions Abroad

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/us/panama-papers.html

Over the years, William R. Ponsoldt had earned tens of millions of dollars building a string of successful companies. He had renovated apartment buildings in the New York City area. Bred Arabian horses. Run a yacht club in the Bahamas, a rock quarry in Michigan, an auto-parts company in Canada, even a multibillion-dollar hedge fund...

Aug 17, 2016 Shady Foreign Lobbying Effort Implicates Drumpf AND Clinton Campaign Chairmen

http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/17/shady-foreign-lobbying-effort-implicates-trump-and-clinton-campaign-chairmen/

Donald Drumpf’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort reportedly helped route more than $1 million in secret from a pro-Russian group in Ukraine to a Washington D.C. lobbying firm co-founded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta...

08/19/16 Podesta Group retains outside counsel over Manafort-related scandal

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/podesta-group-paul-manafort-russia-ukraine-227215

A prominent D.C. lobbying firm has hired outside counsel over revelations that it may have been improperly involved in lobbying on behalf of pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians who also employed former Donald Drumpf campaign chairman Paul Manafort...

Sunday 16 October 2016 As Donald Drumpf made clear, smart businesses know only idiots pay tax

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/16/taxes-panama-papers-trump-tax-havens

The revelation that the US presidential candidate paid no federal taxes for 18 years will come as no surprise to the global corporations who funnel billions through tax havens...

12 December 2016 Donald Drumpf and Russia: a timeline

http://meta.ath0.com/2016/12/trump-russia-timeline/

I kept reading about Drumpf’s many ties to Russia, but none of the news outlets ever presented a timeline, so I decided to assemble one myself with links to the source articles. I started in 2016, but I’ve been updating it every day or two as events unfold...

13 December 2016 Rex Tillerson: an appointment that confirms Putin's US election win

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/11/rex-tillerson-secretary-of-state-trump-russia-putin

The president-elect has chosen Exxon Mobil CEO as secretary of state but experts say Senate may bridle over realpolitik choice that would benefit Russia...

Dec 19, 2016 Follow The Money: Panama Papers Motherload of Ties Between Drumpf and Russian Mobster Oligarchs

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/12/19/1612741/-Follow-The-Money-Panama-Papers-Motherload-of-Ties-Between-Drumpf-and-Russian-Mobster-Oligarchs

This lengthy but enlightening article with a forward by David Cay Johnston and written by James Henry, shows just how important the Panama Papers were, if people had wanted to delve into the links between Russian oligarchs and Drumpf. Too bad people were all focused on “trade deals” that weren’t there to haunt us. All of this information should have been front and center. These people have been Drumpf’s business cohorts for decades. Some of them are apparent family friends. The kids hang out with them, too. It’s a long article and the source allows one free article, so take your time and read it. If only investigative journalists had been doing what James Henry has done and not gone for that shiny object...e-mails. There should be a massive Church Commission to investigate these relationships. Crimes and misdemeanors look like shiny objects to me...

24 January 2017 We broke the Panama Papers story. Here's how to investigate Donald Drumpf

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/24/panama-papers-media-investigation-next-donald-trump-hold-accountable

We were successful because we collaborated with other journalists. Now it is time for the media to join forces once again – especially given the threat Drumpf poses...

February 2 2017 The Russian 'philosopher' who links Putin, Bannon, Turkey

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-dugin-trump-putin-turkey-20170203-story.html

The Russian ultra-nationalist dubbed "Putin's Rasputin" by Breitbart News when it was run by President Donald Drumpf's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has emerged as an unlikely foreign-policy fixer for the Kremlin...

Feb. 11, 2017 The timeline of Drumpf's ties with Russia lines up with allegations of conspiracy and misconduct

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-russia-ties-michael-flynn-dossier-2017-2

President Donald Drumpf and several associates continue to draw intense scrutiny for their ties to the Russian government...

02/14/17 Putin has Drumpf on ropes early as Flynn resignation rattles world politics

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/319591-putin-has-trump-on-ropes-early-as-flynn-resignation

Michael Flynn’s abrupt resignation as national security adviser, and the admission that he misled the vice president about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, raises the clear question of whether Flynn was rogue or authorized. Far from cauterizing the wound, Flynn’s departure puts more blood in the Senate waters, and rattles diplomats at the United Nations. The Watergate refrain, “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” is the tune of the day on Capitol Hill...

FEB 14, 2017 Drumpf's Russia Reset Will Survive Flynn's Ouster

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/02/mike-flynn-russia/516735/

But the uncertainty that Drumpf has brought to the United States is spilling into even the places that he hoped to do business with...

15 February 2017 Boris Akunin, Russian dissident, explains how democracy died under Putin—and what the US can still do to resist

https://qz.com/910971/boris-akunin-russian-dissident-explains-how-democracy-died-under-putin-and-what-the-us-can-still-do-to-resist/

Grigory Chkhartishvili is one of Russia’s most popular novelists. Published under the pen name Boris Akunin, his books—many of which trace the adventures of a 19th-century sleuth— have sold over 30 million copies worldwide...

Oct 16 2017 Bomb Kills Panama Papers Reporter, Malta’s Prime Minister Says

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/panama-papers/bomb-kills-panama-papers-reporter-malta-s-prime-minister-says-n811221

A Maltese investigative journalist who had exposed her island nation's links with the so-called Panama Papers document leak was killed Monday when a bomb destroyed her car as she was driving near her home, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said...

NOV. 5, 2017 Paradise Papers Shine Light on Where the Elite Keep Their Money

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/paradise-papers.html

It’s called the Paradise Papers: the latest in a series of leaks made public by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shedding light on the trillions of dollars that move through offshore tax havens...

Nov 6, 2017 The Paradise Papers present a serious challenge for democracy

https://news.vice.com/story/the-paradise-papers-present-a-serious-challenge-for-democracy

The Trump administration’s billionaire commerce secretary Wilbur Ross owns a stake in a shipping company that does large amounts of business with another firm partly owned by Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law and a Putin ally sanctioned by the U.S. government...

November 6, 2017 [VIDEO] What you need to know about the Paradise Papers

http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/05/news/paradise-papers-trump-twitter-facebook/index.html

A trove of leaked documents made public Sunday purport to show financial ties between Russia and a member of President Trump's cabinet...

NOV. 6, 2017 After a Tax Crackdown, Apple Found a New Shelter for Its Profits

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/world/apple-taxes-jersey.html

The tech giant has found a tax haven in the island of Jersey, leaving billions of dollars untouched by the United States, leaked documents reveal...

NOV. 7, 2017 How Business Titans, Pop Stars and Royals Hide Their Wealth

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/offshore-tax-havens.html

Records from an offshore hideaway show how an American billionaire grew one of the world’s largest trusts and another owned part of a company accused of exploiting the poor...

Nov 7, 2017 Governments Don’t Stand a Chance Against Rich People Who Don’t Like Taxes

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/11/paradise-papers-panama-taxes/545198/

After each big financial leak, individuals suffer the brunt of the consequences, but the system remains intact...

10 November 2017 [VIDEO] Paradise Papers: Everything you need to know about the leak

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-41880153

The Paradise Papers are a huge leak of financial documents that throw light on the top end of the world of offshore finance...

November 11, 2017 ‘Paradise Papers’ expose fake populism

https://www.newsday.com/opinion/commentary/paradise-papers-expose-fake-populism-1.14902510

Trump administration officials are implicated in a shady world of offshore tax havens...

11.11.2017 Paradise Papers reveal the rise of a new class: The global oligarchy

https://www.salon.com/2017/11/11/paradise-papers-reveal-the-rise-of-a-new-class-the-global-oligarchy/

Bono, the Queen and Wilbur Ross belong to a new class, untethered to nation or party. How can we fight back?

NOV. 12, 2017 Paradise Papers Show How Misguided the G.O.P. Is on Taxes

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/12/opinion/paradise-papers-republicans-taxes.html

A treasure trove of documents given the name of the Paradise Papers was unveiled last week, giving us a clearer idea of how rich people and powerful companies keep their money from the prying eyes of the Internal Revenue Service...

Nov 13, 2017 The True Story Behind The Secret Nine-Month Paradise Papers Investigation (HBO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8mdNahdo4M

This segment originally aired on November 6, 2017, on VICE News Tonight on HBO...

Jan. 5, 2018 Justice Department Probes Clinton Foundation

https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-probes-clinton-foundation-1515176878

Investigation into whether donors got preferential treatment when Clinton was secretary of state...

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newsintodays-blog · 6 years ago

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Jury in ex-Trump aide Manafort's trial adjourns for day without a verdict

New Post has been published on http://newsintoday.info/2018/08/21/jury-in-ex-trump-aide-manaforts-trial-adjourns-for-day-without-a-verdict/

Jury in ex-Trump aide Manafort's trial adjourns for day without a verdict

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) – The jury in the bank and tax fraud trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort ended its third day of deliberations on Monday without reaching a verdict.

The judge said the jury would reconvene on Tuesday morning.

The case is the first to go to trial stemming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, although the charges largely predate Manafort’s five months working on Donald Trump’s successful campaign.

Manafort faces five counts of filing false tax returns, four counts of failing to disclose offshore bank accounts, and nine counts of bank fraud. If convicted on all the charges, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

A conviction would undermine efforts by Trump and some Republican lawmakers to paint Mueller’s Russia inquiry as a political witch hunt, while an acquittal would be a setback for the special counsel.

In a break with convention, Trump weighed in on the trial on Friday, calling the case against Manafort at the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, “very sad” and lauding his former associate as a “very good person.”

On Monday, Trump accused Mueller’s team of “enjoying ruining people’s lives” and trying to influence the elections in November when Republicans will try to hold on to control of Congress.

“Mueller’s Angry Dems are looking to impact the election. They are a National Disgrace!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Trump’s tweet was in reference to a New York Times report that White House Counsel Don McGahn had cooperated extensively with Mueller.

Before dismissing them on Friday, Judge T.S. Ellis reminded the jurors, who are not sequestered, to refrain from discussing the case or investigating it on their own during the weekend.

Some legal experts expressed concern, however, that jurors might still see Trump’s comments – inadvertently or otherwise.

Defense attorneys Kevin Downing (R), Thomas Zehnle (2nd R) and Richard Westling (L) walk at the end of the third day of jury deliberations in the trial against Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman who is facing bank and tax fraud charges, in Alexandria, Virginia, U.S., August 20, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Another headline from Friday that could grab the attention of jurors concerned Ellis’ disclosure that he had received threats related to the trial and was being protected by U.S. marshals. The jury was not present when he made those remarks.

“In a high profile case, the general assumption is that some outside information may accidentally reach a jury, despite jurors’ best efforts to avoid relevant news,” said jury consultant Roy Futterman.

“Given the judge’s statement, the jurors may reasonably assume that they may be at some risk, which may change the tenor of their deliberations, perhaps raising tensions or speeding things up.”

On Thursday, the jury asked for a definition of “reasonable doubt” and clarification on the law governing the reporting of foreign bank accounts, but it did not ask any similar questions on Friday or Monday.

Shanlon Wu, who represented Manafort’s former protege Rick Gates before he pleaded guilty in February and cooperated with the prosecution, said the lack of questions might bode better for the prosecution than the defense.

He said it suggested “they were working hard and working well together, and there was no dissension.”

Slideshow (8 Images)

“I think that’s a good sign for the prosecution,” Wu said.

Still, he said he saw a chance of acquittals on the four counts of failing to disclose foreign bank accounts, citing the jury’s technical question on Thursday about the ownership and control threshold requirements for such disclosures.

Reporting by Nathan Layne and Karen Freifeld in Alexandria, Va.; Writing by Alistair Bell and Tim Ahmann; Editing by Bill Trott and Peter Cooney

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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viralhottopics · 8 years ago

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Trump’s Allegiance To Russia Begins With The Oil Industry

This article was co-written with Kert Davies

Any analysis of Russiagate, and the fateful phone calls between Michael Flynn and Russias ambassador to the United States, must address the critical fact that U.S. sanctions on Russia are severely damaging Vladimir Putins economic power. In particular, these sanctions imposed by Barack Obama, supported by Hillary Clinton, and repeatedly questioned by Donald Trump and Rex Tillerson are blocking a lucrative long-term oil agreement between Russia and ExxonMobil, a deal whose value is underscored by a little-noticed 1988 declassified CIA document.

As law enforcement and congressional investigations go forward, a key issue is whether there were pre-election discussions between the Putin and Trump camps involving the possible lifting of these sanctions, just as Russia was seeking to influence the election in Trumps favor.

The apparent hook for Flynns multiple phone calls with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak was Obamas December 29 imposition of new sanctions against Russia, penalties imposed in the wake of U.S. intelligence findings that Russia had aimed to tilt the election to Trump by hacking emails and spreading disinformation. Although transcripts of the calls from intelligence community intercepts have not been publicly released, the Washington Post reported that some senior U.S. officials interpret Flynns words as signaling that Moscow could expect a lessening of the sanctions. Thereafter, Putin announced that Russia would not impose retaliatory sanctions, a decision that Trump then praised on Twitter.

But the scope of those December sanctions are small potatoes compared with other penalties already in place prior to the election: the 2014 sanctions that the U.S. imposed after Russias military annexation of Crimea and other abuses in Ukraine. Those sanctions penalize numerous companies and individuals in Putins inner circle, as well as key Russian banks and energy companies, and block U.S oil companies, including Exxon, from working on Russian oil and gas drilling joint ventures.

The Russia-Exxon Deal

Perhaps the biggest deal that the U.S. sanctions shut down was the remarkable 2011 agreement that Putin and Rosneft, Russias state oil company, brokered with Exxon and its CEO, Rex Tillerson. The two sides called the agreement a Strategic Partnership. The plum in this deal, potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars, was new exploration for offshore oil and gas in the Russian Arctic. (The drilling deal was facilitated by global warming that has melted Arctic ice; some have asked whether Exxon was sharing with Rosneft its knowledge and modelling of accelerating climate change, even as it continued to fund efforts to conceal the risks of climate change from the American people.)

This deal is made even more interesting by a 1988 CIA secret report, since declassified, on the Kara Sea, the very location where Exxon and Rosneft were planning their major offshore operations. The Kara Sea, the CIA stated, could become one of the major petroleum regions in the USSR early in the next century. But the agency judged that development was unlikely without joint ventures with Western oil companies.

Twenty-three years later, Exxon stepped into the very role the CIA predicted.

Oil and gas revenue has accounted for upwards of 70 percent of Russias export income and 40 to 50 percent of the Russian budget over the past decade. A glut of oil on the global market has crashed oil prices and tanked the Russian economy in the last few years. Nonetheless, Russia is now second to the United States in oil and gas production, and only the U.S. fracking boom of the past 5 years puts the U.S. in the lead. And in brokering the Russian deal, Exxon promised to teach Rosneft to frack, with made-in-America technology and equipment.

The Russian Arctic alone is said to hold upwards of 90 billion barrels of oil. And Rosneft has exclusive access, granted by Putin. The Rosneft deal was also crucial for Exxons future, allowing it to book massive reserves unavailable elsewhere on earth, before the sanctions shut it all down.

One might ask how allowing this deal to proceed would help the United States anywhere except at Exxon headquarters. But the deal has the potential to make Russia great again.

Trump and the Russia Sanctions

Now Putin and Exxon have a potential savior in Donald Trump. Candidate Trump promised in July that he would be looking into recognizing Crimea as part of Russia and lifting the Obama sanctions. A few days later Trump told an interviewer that the people of Crimea, from what Ive heard, would rather be with Russia.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, had compared Putins intervention in Crimea to Adolph Hitlers aggression and called for maintaining and indeed strengthening U.S. sanctions against Moscow.

On January 16, president-elect Trump returned to the subject, saying he might propose a deal under which the U.S. would end its Crimea sanctions if Russia agreed to a nuclear arms agreement. Russias hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, Trump said, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit.

Buttressing the idea that Trump has been preparing to lift the Russia sanctions was his choice for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who had no diplomatic or government experience but who spent 41 years at Exxon. In pursuing the arctic drilling deal, Tillerson developed strong personal ties to Rosneft head Igor Sechin, an ex-KGB agent close to Putin. In 2012, Russia awarded Tillerson one of its highest honors, the Order of Friendship decoration. Despite Tillersons denials at his confirmation hearing, Exxon lobbied against Obamas 2014 sanctions, which included penalties on Sechin personally. Tillerson thereafter told his shareholders that Exxon generally opposed U.S. sanctions as ineffective. (Tillersons former colleagues at Exxon will now also benefit from a range of Trump policies that favor oil and gas interests.)

Now there is evidence that Trump associates from outside the administration have been actively pushing the White House to end the sanctions. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that Michael Cohen, Donald Trumps long-time personal lawyer at the Trump organization, hand-delivered to Flynn, the week before he resigned, a proposal for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal that includes lifting the U.S. sanctions. The plan was endorsed by Cohen, Felix Sater, a Russian-American businessman with longstanding connections to Trump, and a Ukrainian opposition politician.

To be sure, there are reasons besides the sanctions that Putin might have wanted to help Trump win: Trump lacked Hillary Clintons national security and government experience and thus was potentially a weaker adversary; Trump was calling into question U.S. alliances and commitments overseas, including NATO; and Trump repeatedly expressed personal admiration for Putin.

But the chance to rescue the flagging Russian economy certainly would have loomed large for the Kremlin leader.

The Trump Camps Russia Ties

Meanwhile, Trump not only was the potential beneficiary of this aggressive Russian interference in the U.S. election; he actively cheered it on during the campaign, endlessly praising the leaking of Democrats emails, quoting from those messages, and calling on Russia to hack into Hillary Clintons server to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.

There is plenty of evidence of engagement between the Trump camp and Russia. Flynn, who was Trumps campaign advisor before briefly serving as his White House national security adviser, has significant ties to Russian interests, as do Trump advisers Paul Manafort, Carter Page, and Roger Stone. (The intelligence dossier created by ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele includes the unconfirmed allegation that Page met over the summer with Rosnefts president Sechin and a senior Russian government official and that Sechins associate said that the Rosneft president was so keen to lift personal and corporate western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered Page and his associates the brokerage of up to a 19 percent (privatized) stake in Rosneft. In return, Page had expressed interest and confirmed that were Trump elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.)

Reuters reported over the weekend that the FBI is examining financial transactions by Russian individuals and companies who are believed to have links to Trump associates. And the New York Times reported last week that calls intercepted by U.S. intelligence calls show that Trump associates and campaign officials had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election. Meanwhile, two days after the election, the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, said there were contacts between Russian officials and Trumps team during the campaign. Obviously, Ryabkov added, we know most of the people from his entourage. Obviously.

At his press conference on Thursday, Trump flatly denied that he had any financial connections to Russia, despite the extensive evidence that he does. He added that nobody that I know of from his campaign talked with Russian officials during the campaign. But as to whether Flynn discussed the sanctions with Kislyak in December, Trump said, It would have been okay with me I would have directed him if I thought he wasnt doing it.

Thus the signs of a possible arrangement: The Trump and Putin camps are acquainted. Putin helps Trump become president. Trump ends the sanctions that are holding back Putins economy, especially the Exxon-Rosneft deal. That the two men seem to share a love of autocratic government, of pressuring the media and judiciary to do their bidding, and of mingling their financial interests with their government power, does not lessen concerns that such a corrupt deal has been taking place in front of our eyes.

Kert Davies directs the Climate Investigations Center. David Halperin, a lawyer, formerly worked at the National Security Council and the Senate Intelligence Committee. This article also appears on Republic Report.

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