Everyone In Trumpland Lied About Russia Sanctions. HUH, HOW WEIRD!
Heckuva coincidence!
This is your periodic Wonkette reminder that the Russia investigation is, was, and has always been about the sanctions. Russia is a kleptocratic petro-state that cannot do business when its top echelon is cut off from the global financial market. So when you see That Idiot losing his shit on Twitter the same day that his former National Security Advisor is sentenced for lying to the FBI about sanctions, and that very morning The Daily Beast breaks a story that the Mueller investigation is zeroing in on clandestine sanctions negotiations, you can be sure these are not coincidences!
The Daily Beast reports:
[T]hree sources familiar with Mueller's probe told The Daily Beast that his team is now zeroing in on Trumpworld figures who may have attempted to shape the administration's foreign policy by offering to ease U.S. sanctions on Russia.
The Special Counsel's Office is preparing court filings that are expected to detail Trump associates' conversations about sanctions relief—and spell out how those offers and counter-proposals were characterized to top figures on the campaign and in the administration, those same sources said.
Gosh, who might those "Trumpworld figures" be? Obviously, one of them is being sentenced right now for lying about his conversation with the Russian ambassador regarding sanctions. Because the FBI called up Michael Flynn, the National Security Advisor who had been monetizing his security clearance for years, and said, Hey, we need to talk to you about your conversation with the Russian ambassador. And even though he rightly figured that the agents "probably knew what was said," he lied to them anyway.
Knowing that he had likely been recorded, Flynn deliberately told the FBI that he hadn't discussed sanctions. WHY?
And who else in Trumpland might be caught up in this sanctions dragnet?
Of course everyone's favorite expert on the opioid/tech/Middle East/Mexico crisis is ass-deep in this sanctions mess. Remember that fun time during the transition where Jared Kushner met in secret with representatives of Russia's state bank Vnesheconombank, which has been under sanctions since 2014, for reasons having ... absolutely nothing to do with his family business desperately needing cash?As the Washington Post reported at the time:
A diplomatic meeting would have provided the bank, which has been under U.S. sanctions since 2014, a chance to press for rolling back the penalties even as the Obama administration was weighing additional retaliations against Moscow for Russia's interference in the U.S. election.
A business meeting between an international development bank and a real estate executive, coming as Kushner's company had been seeking financing for its troubled $1.8 billion purchase of an office building on Fifth Avenue in New York, could raise questions about whether Kushner's personal financial interests were colliding with his impending role as a public official.
Then Jared asked for a secret shoe phone so he could communicate directly with the Russians without any of those nasty, Deep State Obama goons listening in. As one does when one is definitely not secretly negotiating to lift sanctions on a hostile foreign power! And then he,lied aboutforgot to include it on his security disclosures. HUH.
The Russians tried to approach Don Jr. at the infamous Trump Tower meeting to discuss sanctions -- as in, "Here is some fake kompromat on Hillary. If you win, you can thank us by lifting those pesky sanctions, and then we'll give you all the bouncy white Russian babies those evangelicals could ever adopt."
We're going to go out on a limb and guess that Dipshit Jr. had no earthly idea what that Russian lawyer lady was offering at the time. But Uncle Pauly, who spent a decade ratfucking in Ukraine and is also not A IDIOT, must have splained it to him at some point, since Deej knew to lie about it when the New York Times came knocking.
Anyone else, Daily Beast?
It's still unclear if Trump adviser Erik Prince and Kirill Dmitriev, the head of one of Russia's sovereign wealth funds, spoke about sanctions in their now-infamous meeting in the Seychelles held during the last days of the transition. But The Daily Beast previously reported that the two spoke broadly about Russian investment opportunities in the U.S. and the potential for peace in Ukraine.
All we want for Christmas is for Mueller to take down that grifting , mercenary sonofabitch!
And we haven't even gotten to Michael Cohen dropping off a plan to hand Ukraine over to the Russians and lift sanctions yet. Luckily, neither did anyone else in this incompetent bunch of fools. The Daily Beast is on that too!
Just a week after Trump took office, Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii V. Artemenko handed Michael Cohen, then Trump's personal lawyer, a " peace plan " that would lift sanctions. Accounts differ on how seriously the proposal was considered by the administration.
Around the same time, Trump reportedly asked staffers in the State Department to come up with a plan to roll back sanctions. But the department's transition team was disorganized and understaffed, according to one person on the team. The request never made its way to people tasked with advising the White House on sanctions, according to two former national security officials.
But we'll quit typing now and see whether the judge decided to LOCK THEM UP Michael Flynn. FOR LYING ABOUT SANCTIONS. WHICH THEY ALL DID. WHICH HE CAN UNDOUBTEDLY TESTIFY TO.
Good luck today in court to General Michael Flynn. Will be interesting to see what he has to say, despite tremendou… https: //t.co/WJ63P76Mlx
— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1545133287.0
You guys, it's the sanctions. For reals.
[ The Daily Beast / Flynn Sentencing Memo / WaPo ]
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True that.