Trump & Putin

I'm going to file this under "coincidence" not "conspiracy." The transaction was so complicated (Cayman Islands shell companies, etc) that no one can figure out who received 19% ownership of Rosneft in December.

Quote: Reuters

"The main question in relation to this transaction, as ever, still sounds like this: Who is the real buyer of a 19.5 percent stake in Rosneft?" Sergey Aleksashenko, a former deputy head of Russia's central bank, wrote in a blog last week.

The tantalizing detail that makes the mysterious transaction either a "coincidence" or a "conspiracy" is that the golden showers dossier mentions a promise made to Trump by Putin regarding 19% ownership of Rosneft.



Rosneft is Russia's largest oil company.

I will file it with the real shooter on a grassy knoll.

Quote: buzzardknot

I will file it with the real shooter on a grassy knoll.

I have filed it under "one of the reasons that the Orange Orangutan is licking Putin's balls."

Inevitably, the lid will come off of Trump's Russia dealings and debts. It'll be like pulling away the sheetrock to find that the wall is crawling with thousands of cockroaches.

Christopher Steele, the British spy who authored the golden showers dossier is believed to have used Oleg Erovinkin,(former chief of Russia's KGB) as his primary source for the dossier.

Guess who has been murdered?

This is just too scary.

Quote: FrGamble

This is just too scary.

What will be even scarier is when critics of Trump HERE start disappearing. We know that the Orange Orangutan is a fan of Putin's methods for dealing with opponents.

Micheal Flynn is the third Trump associate to resign (get fired?) for having an inappropriate relationship with Russia. (The first two were Paul Manafort and Carter Page who resigned before the election.)

Flynn left the administration because he appears to have talked to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak in December about new sanctions imposed by the Obama administration.

On its surface, this scandal seems relatively minor, especially by Trump standards. (After all, which is more outrageous: that an American candidate running for office publicly urged the KGB hack into his opponent's email server? Or that a National Security Advisor nominee had a phone call with a Russian Ambassador before inauguration day?) I know that supposedly Flynn lied to the Vice President, and Flynn was vulnerable to blackmail, but we've heard worse stories about the President himself than these minor indiscretions committed by Flynn.

My guess is that there's much more to this Flynn story. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

(By the way, Flynn has set a new record: just 24 days on the job as the NSA. Congratulations, Mike!)

Quote: reno

My guess is that there's much more to this Flynn story. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

Several right-wing bloggers are upset by plausible implications of this column: that the intelligence community (CIA, FBI, DIA, NSA) deliberately set out to destroy Flynn. And Flynn is merely the appetizer. The entree is Trump.

And why would Flynn be in the crosshairs?

According to this theory Flynn knows the ugly secret details of Obama's Iran deal.

Quote: Erik Erickson

The operation primarily focused on discrediting Flynn, an opponent of the Iran nuclear deal, in order to handicap the Trump administration’s efforts to disclose secret details of the nuclear deal with Iran that had been long hidden by the Obama administration.

Wait, huh? How would firing Flynn prevent Trump from complaining about the Iran deal? If Flynn is fired, he has nothing to lose and can hit the talk show circuit (or write a book) to complain about the Iran deal. And how would Obama have had enough control over Flynn to engineer Flynn's illegal phone call to Kislyak and then engineer Flynn's lying to Pence? Flynn dug his own grave. Obama does not have magical superpowers over Michael Flynn. (Also, maybe Trump shouldn't have hired Flynn, no?)

Right-wing blogger Allahpundit is intrigued, but ultimately not completely persuaded by this Iran connection.

Quote: Hot Air

If you’re worried about Flynn releasing secret agreements with Iran, best to hold on to what you know about his call with the Russian ambassador and use it as leverage over him if/when you hear rumblings that he’s about to reveal something about Iran. Taking Flynn out preemptively and risking a leak war with the Trump White House in the process seems apt to backfire, at least in terms of keeping the Iran deal confidential. If on the other hand the goal was to get rid of Flynn for various other reasons — he’s unsteady, his trustworthiness is in question, his intel reforms threaten the bureaucracy — then preemptive action makes more sense.

And why would the Trump be in the crosshairs?

Trump has accused the CIA of being, uh, German Nazis. (Trump picks fights with all the wrong people, no?) But seriously, if the intelligence community was serious about sabotaging the Trump administration, they'd leak his tax returns.

I'm not sure they need to sabotage Trump. He's likely do that all by himself.

Quote: reno

that the intelligence community (CIA, FBI, DIA, NSA) deliberately set out to destroy Flynn. And Flynn is merely the appetizer. The entree is Trump.

Great plot for a movie. Real life doesn't work that way.

BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html