A back channel for Putin to control Trump
Ohhhhhh god.
The Post, minutes ago – 8 p.m. their time, so it’s another one of these end-of-the-day booms that cause Maddow to tear up the show she and her people just spent the day writing and producing.
This one though…
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has gathered evidence that a secret meeting in the Seychelles just before the inauguration of Donald Trump was an effort to establish a back channel between the incoming administration and the Kremlin — apparently contradicting statements made to lawmakers by one of its participants, according to people familiar with the matter.
Urk.
So it’s all true. Tillerson, and his demolition of the State Department and our ability to conduct a reasonable foreign policy – all Putin’s doing. Putin who saw to it that that double agent who retired to Salisbury got poisoned along with his daughter and the cop who got to them first. World of Oligarchs, here we are.
A witness cooperating with Mueller has told investigators the meeting was set up in advance so that a representative of the Trump transition could meet with an emissary from Moscow to discuss future relations between the countries, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
While Obama was still president, and not in plain view at Trump Tower or similar, but in deep secrecy in the Seychelles.
George Nader, a Lebanese American business who helped organize and attended the Seychelles meeting, 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.
They nabbed him at Dulles in mid-January and he’s been co-operating ever since.
While Mueller is probing the circumstances of the Seychelles meeting, he is also more broadly examining apparent efforts by the Trump transition team to create a back channel for secret talks between the new administration and the Kremlin. Mueller was appointed special counsel to investigate possible Russian interference in the 2016 election, whether any Americans assisted in such efforts, and any other matters that arise in the course of his probe.
Investigators now suspect that the Seychelles meeting may have been one of the first efforts to establish such a line of communications between the two governments, these people said. Nader’s account is considered key evidence — but not the only evidence — about what transpired in the Seychelles, according to people familiar with the matter.
Nader has long served as an adviser to the UAE leadership, and in that role he met more than once with Trump officials, including Stephen K. Bannon and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to people familiar with the matter. After the Seychelles meeting, Nader visited the White House several times, and met at least once there with Bannon and Kushner, these people said.
This is just awful. I still can’t get my head around it. We’ve been pitched into the filth and we can’t get out.
I wonder if this will morph from collusion to treason at some point for someone?
Trump and Co. had no experience. They needed someone with a governmental background they could talk to and ask for advice. Vlad’s just helping out. What’s wrong with that?
Who knows. Maybe Trump is telling the truth about collusion with Russia before the election: the real collusion came AFTER the election.
Can’t morph into treason; we’re not at war with anyone.
Can I ask if this is true, why would it be a big deal? I was under the impression that back channels between states were fairly common in diplomacy. I wouldn’t have thought it would warrant the breathless tone of this blog post. (But then I think the entire ‘Russiagate scandal’ is supported by very vague and scant evidence).
“why would it be a big deal?”
The meeting being discussed was not with the American “State,”I but with representatives of Not Yet President Donald Trump. I believe that diplomacy by amateurs/civilians is frowned upon, that is to say illegal? Didn’t Flynn get into trouble for doing this sort of thing before Trump’s inauguration?
How long have you been following this blog? There’s been a crapload of stuff posted on this very issue for more than a year. Links to lots of information and stories, many apparently coming from source within the Trump White House itself. Sure seems to be more than “vague” and a lot more than “scant.” Would you be so blase if there was comparably “scant” evidence that a Democratic president was this “vaguely” tied into Russian connections?
And what is the proper tone to have when one has learned that your nation’s government is even more seriously corrupted and compromised by a hostile foreign power than one had previously feared? I don’t live in the United States so the stakes are not as high personally as they are for US citizens , but sometimes even being on the same PLANET as the Trump administration is scary as shit.
@Your Name’s not Bruce?
I agree with your last sentence, about it being often scary living on a planet with a President Trump, but not much else. You say the Trump administration is “corrupted and compromised” by Russia, yet its hawkish stance toward Russia is barely different from that of Hillary Clinton.
I’m aware that there’s been a constant stream of assertions and rumours about this issue (often from unverified sources), but in terms of established facts showing “collusion” between Trump or his campaign and the Russian government? There’s really little or none of that. And I’m neither American nor a Republican supporter, so yes I would say the same things about a Democratic president in the same situation.
The main reason I take this seriously is that I agree with the fears of Stephen Cohen, Glenn Greenwald and others that the US and Russia are looking worryingly close to outright war. There are escalating military tensions between the two countries in Eastern Europe and Syria that I fear could easily flare into an outright conflict. And in the current American political climate, any move from the US to lessen tensions and come to a mutually-agreed arrangement with Russia will be instantly leaped on as new evidence that the President and his officials are in the grip of the Russians. That’s what makes this issue a dangerous one in my eyes.
As for your first paragraph… is this really the first time an incoming administration has made contacts with foreign diplomats before coming to power, even when their stance is different from an incumbent administration? I would be surprised. (And I’m not really clear on what Michael Flynn is supposed to have done wrong; the accusations range from lying about contacts with Russian diplomats to corrupt financial dealings with the Turkish government.)
Question: has there been Trump/Putin collusion?
Hmm, I don’t know, but there are two ways to try to work it out.
1. Create a list of real and imaginary meetings between shadowy intermediaries, and deduce “there must be something there.” Job done.
2. Create a list of verifiable Trumpian actions vis-a-vis Russia.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2017/12/20/trump-administration-approves-lethal-arms-sales-to-ukraine/?utm_term=.71d30d3f92a8
encouraging fracking (which may or may not be a good thing, but cannot help an oil exporting country like Russia)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/u-s-strikes-said-to-kill-scores-of-russian-fighters-in-syria
You may or may not like Trump, but collusion with Putin is a dog that won’t hunt. My tip is, think about the real, rather than the imaginary.
Leaving PD aside for undisclosed reasons, let me just point out that Mr Nader was apparently acting as unregistered agent of a foreign power (UAR) within the US. My guess is that is the reason he has been so accomodating with the investigators.
I had just watched Maddow when I read this post. She was exasperated and exhilarated at once because almost daily now she has had to scrap an entire show at the last minute due to breaking, more and more sensational news. A few weeks ago she had to turn around on the highway home for the holidays when she heard on the radio that something had come up again and get back into the studio. Not one to sneak off from work to golf, that one.
Yes I saw that one – she had promised Susan a day away, and threw in a “Sorry, honey” while telling us about her turnaround. Her outrage is a solace during this nightmare.
…while leaving off inconvenient verifiable Trumpian actions vis-a-vis Russia, such as his refusal to impose sanctions – his continuing “bromance” with the strong man Putin – his revealing of state secrets to Russian visitors
In short, Trump is a confused mess where Russia is concerned, and there is certainly nothing that can give us comfort in your list. Collusion with Russia, followed by choosing to do what he wants because he has the biggest button is not impossible for someone with an ego like Trump has, so the attempts to sort this out and find out what has happened, what the implications are, and what impact this could have on our mid-term elections is certainly a very valuable exercise.
And this is thinking about the real. It appears to be Trump who prefers to think about the imaginary, morphing his reality show into reality, and believing the Presidency is simply an extension of that.
And all of us are exploring the “real”, as you might define it – the very real breaches of ethics, the very real violations of laws against profiting from public office, the very real sense that he would like to be a dictator and already believes himself to have more power than he already has.
If you can make any true sense out of this dog-and-pony show, you are welcome to try, but your list of actions does not do it. Collusion has not been ruled out by the Intelligence Committees, so I think it is a bit premature of you to state that it is “a dog that will not hunt”.
Yeah, but Don Furor is a little ho(a)rse.
Correction: UAR is the old name for Egypt-Libya. Meant to say UAE earlier, for Emirates (not to be confused with Qatar, who got blacklisted for housing trrrsts over refusing Kushner a billion-class loan. Which others happily supplied).
It’s pretty well-established that there is one president at a time. One secretary of state at a time. One administration at a time.
Of course a new administration shouldn’t come in “cold” not knowing anything about discussions with foreign leaders. This is why presidential candidates, and the president-elect, receive security briefings. There’s an entire transition apparatus designed to make sure that the incoming Secretary of Such-and-Such is up to speed on what the outgoing Secretary is handling. Possibly, on occasion, introductions are made before the incoming team takes office — but it’s done through official channels, meaning that the incumbents are present. Having a “back-channel” is an attempt to undermine the outgoing administration while it is still in power.
Like it.
:blush:
Credits go to Ch. Chaplin for the movie The Dictator.
Rrr – you just moved up a step in my book. I spend my life surrounded by people who have no idea who Charlie Chaplin is, and haven’t heard of the Marx Brothers (you know, Harpo, Chico, Groucho, and Karl).
Apparently we are only supposed to consider ‘the real’, ‘verifiable’ facts, by which is meant publicly known, undisputed facts. This is an epistemology that says we can never actually investigate anything unless we already know it’s true. You have reason to believe X did something wrong but no verifiable facts to confirm it? Well, looking to see if those facts exist or not is ‘imaginary’ and ‘a dog that won’t hunt’. X has to outright admit to wrongdoing or just lay all the evidence right out in the open for everyone to see; anything else is ‘imaginary’.
musubk
*cough* Lawrence Krauss’s defenders *cough*
And I’m not sure how to read this:
Goodnight all.
“(you know, Harpo, Chico, Groucho, and Karl).”
Will nobody think of poor Zeppo? Or the non-cinematicized Gummo?
“And I’m not sure how to read this:”
I think this is Phil sympathetically commiserating with all those women who are going to be asked by thick-headed men “When is International MEN’S Day?” Kinda like the male equivalent of “Blue Lives Matter” or “All lives Matter” response to BLM, or demanding a “White History Month” in response to Black History Month. That’s my take anyhow. Another Phil Plait tweet:
https://twitter.com/BadAstronomer/status/971877379055505411
In case you wonder just how manwashed our history is, I thought I was decently well read in astronomy, but I *had never heard of* Maria Cunitz before this tweet. Now I want to know more about her.Phil Plait added,
I suspect Phil is poking it at the “what about the men?” types. I’ve certainly seen men wailing online about “when is it going to be International Men’s Day?” Stupidly, I tried pointing out why there was a women’s day. Another commentator simply pointed out that International Men’s Day was November 19th. They got as many down votes as I did.
Thanks. I should have probed deeper, but that’s a never ending quest. Like astronomy. Especially at night.
“Leaving PD aside for undisclosed reasons”
?
This seems to imply you’re familiar with me somehow?
No, PD, what it implies is I’m not saying why. Leave it at that.
@Rrr
Ok.