Rosneft

[FTJT]

Jesus fucking christ.

Have people been following this?

If not:

One of the claims in the Trump dossier, made in July, was that Trump had been offered a 19% share in Rosneft (the Russian state-owned oil company) as part of the, er, 'arrangements' between him and the Kremlin. Widely laughed out of town as absurd, of course.

Except 19% of Rosneft just got sold to an undisclosed Caymans-based shell company (quasi-fronted by Qatar), with the money to buy the thing provided by, er, Russia. Worth pointing out that Qatar and the Trump White House get on pretty well.

Not to worry though, cos as we all know there was no substance to any of the claims in the dossier and no reason to take it seriously.





e: by the way, if you're not bothered about sleeping tonight, this is an interesting read.

 

[hibadelic]

Jesus $#@!ing christ.

Have people been following this?

If not:

One of the claims in the Trump dossier, made in July, was that Trump had been offered a 19% share in Rosneft (the Russian state-owned oil company) as part of the, er, 'arrangements' between him and the Kremlin. Widely laughed out of town as absurd, of course.

Except 19% of Rosneft just got sold to an undisclosed Caymans-based shell company (quasi-fronted by Qatar), with the money to buy the thing provided by, er, Russia. Worth pointing out that Qatar and the Trump White House get on pretty well.

Not to worry though, cos as we all know there was no substance to any of the claims in the dossier and no reason to take it seriously.





e: by the way, if you're not bothered about sleeping tonight, this is an interesting read.

Terrifying.

 

[egb_hibs]

Trump is going to be on the receiving end of unprecedented attention from hostile intelligence and media scrutiny. I think you can take comfort from the fact that if there is anything in this, his tenure won't be very long.

On the other hand he is also going to be subject to unprecedented levels of black ops, agit prop and fake news, so keeping one's powder dry until the legion anti-trump investigative forces do their jobs, is probably required. We're in week two of 208 and I fear people are going to be giving themselves ulcers at this rate!

 

[egb_hibs]

I wonder if this is the background to the state department purge

http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUKKCN10003A

 

[egb_hibs]

Meanwhile, the blogger man misstates what was in the dossier which is explained here (which also originally misstated it). Sounds like the Russians are indeed trying to oil wheels on the lifting of sanctions, but it doesn't sound like they gave Trump a chunk of Rosneft and the 19% is not a shady coincidence but a chunk of Rosneft the Russians have been working on selling all along.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/carter-page-trump-russia-igor-sechin-dossier-2017-1

The complaint at Corbyn-esque handling of holocaust commemorations given wider reporting on Trump and Israel and the elevation of DHS powers by keeping it out of the loop, seem somewhat inconclusive.

Powder not yet damp, though a reminder of the role of blogs in contemprary US politics and the importance of chasing down the facts; we have highly motivated spooks, journalists and academics on that case, I imagine.

 

[FTJT]

Meanwhile, the blogger man misstates what was in the dossier which is explained here (which also originally misstated it). Sounds like the Russians are indeed trying to oil wheels, doesn't sound like they gave Trump a chunk of Rosneft.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/carter-page-trump-russia-igor-sechin-dossier-2017-1

Yeah, saw a bit more on this. There's still questions about the ownership of said chunk though imo - even leaving aside the various greased wheels, worth noting the head of the QIA was in Washington 48 hours after agreeing the Rosneft deal to announce plans for massive capital investment in the US cos of lovely Donald. No idea where the moving parts are on this front, but I feel like there are definitely moving parts.

And now for TIN HAT TIME!

Interestingly, the day after the Rosneft deal was announced, John McCain got Steele to send him an unredacted copy of the dossier (docs that had been previously shared inc with reporters had all source information removed). McCain hands this to the FBI on 9 Dec. Later that day, Trump announces, out of the blue, that Giuliani won't be part of his cabinet. Two weeks later, Erovinkin's dead. A fortnight later, Giuliani's back inside the tent

Given what's come out about the information channel between the FBI NY field office and Giuliani...tin hat ALL THE WAY ON, I'm not usually one for this, but I reckon Giuliani was the conduit for Trump to find out about the dossier a month before he was briefed. Trump passes what he knew onto Russia to try and seal the leak, and then tries to distance himself from Giuliani who doesn't seem to be the best at shutting his yap - but once Erovinkin's death gets out, Giuliani realises the stakes, realises he has leverage, and manoeuvres himself a comfy seat out of it.

- - - Updated - - -

The complaint at Corbyn-esque handling of holocaust commemorations given wider reporting on Trump and Israel and the elevation of DHS powers by keeping it out of the loop, seem somewhat inconclusive.

I think the DHS thing seems at least moderately credible tbh - particularly in the context of stuff like the NSC changes, trying to feel out the limits of executive power sounds like absolutely the sort of thing the Orangeman would do on his first day of big school. What comes next is certainly speculative but I think it's a more-than-plausible reading of the situation.

In terms of the holocaust point, I'm in two minds; I got the outrage but wasn't entirely convinced, though this made a bit more sense for me wrt Bannon and special pleading

 

[egb_hibs]

Let's wait and see. I think we are in a period of open hysteria. As before the holocaust thing resembles what Corbyn and the left do and it's a little ironic that it is therefore the subject of a hullabaloo in a break from suggesting the Donald will be helping the evil Zionists with their schemes.

The rest of this is, let's be honest, conspiracy theory logic - attempting to join dots in order to get to a preferred conclusion .

Trump will be under more scrutiny than any prior president, has pretty much the entire US and wider western establishment gunning for him, and also has arranged against him legions of professional and amateur purveyors of false news. It's unlikely that he will get away with what his forebears did never mind something as blatant as pocketing a fifth of a Russian energy company - which he would then have to keep secret forever.

He's less likely to use his office for enrichment than graspers like the clintons or even than Obama, if for no other reason than he doesn't need to - and certainly not enough to take the kind of risks that all this would entail.

Moves he makes will be presented as impending totalitarianism even when they correspond to the actions of his predecessors, all the resources of luvviedom and the media will be used to create a climate of conspiracy theory - being a fan of the genre, I'm looking forward to all the paranoid thrillers that Hollywood will produce - in both fiction and faction, he will at every step have the apparatus of his own civil service trying to nobble him.

In all likelihood he's gonna get got sooner or later, but I think it's improbable he's going to let himself be caught out for something so unnecessary and so impossible to hide. I could be wrong, time will tell.

 

[HenryLB]

He's less likely to use his office for enrichment than graspers like the clintons or even than Obama, if for no other reason than he doesn't need to - and certainly not enough to take the kind of risks that all this would entail.

I agree with most of what you write here, but I often see this wheeled out with regard to rich people and it's not true. Rich people are rich because they like the operation of making money. In almost every case they don't stop because they don't need any more.

Trump has registered as a candidate for 2020 - the first sitting president to do so in his first year of office - and can now take 'donations'.

 

[egb_hibs]

I agree with most of what you write here, but I often see this wheeled out with regard to rich people and it's not true. Rich people are rich because they like the operation of making money. In almost every case they don't stop because they don't need any more.

Trump has registered as a candidate for 2020 - the first sitting president to do so in his first year of office - and can now take 'donations'.

You could be right although I don't read too much into the last given his campaign financing challenges versus the others. Personally I fear the White House is now full of a scarier breed than grafters; ideologues.

 

[HenryLB]

You could be right although I don't read too much into the last given his campaign financing challenges versus the others. Personally I fear the White House is now full of a scarier breed than grafters; ideologues.

True. I think the awful thing is they might be both, though!

 

[egb_hibs]

True. I think the awful thing is they might be both, though!

A rare combination and it would in some ways be comforting - the worst ideologues are generally not interested in money and their zeal is not moderated by avarice! Money grubbing despots are of course ten a penny but a different breed and to be honest, unlikely to do much harm in an environment like the US where whisking away the GDP is probably not going to fly.

 

[HenryLB]

A rare combination and it would in some ways be comforting - the worst ideologues are generally not interested in money and their zeal is not moderated by avarice! Money grubbing despots are of course ten a penny but a different breed and to be honest, unlikely to do much harm in an environment like the US where whisking away the GDP is probably not going to fly.

Remember there's more than one person there, though. Bannon is the ideologue, Trump the useful avaricious rube.

 

[egb_hibs]

Remember there's more than one person there, though. Bannon is the ideologue, Trump the useful avaricious rube.

That's a fair point. Bannon is probably foremost in my thoughts tbh. What a mess Obama has left behind him, not that that will get equivalent attention any time soon. These people must be rubbing their hands.

Still I don't expect Armageddon for anyone bar the Republican Party. Democrats to regain power with a thumping majority and probably for a long time, would be my forecast for the medium term and beyond. I continue to think Europe is the bigger long term concern.