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Clinton Campaign Manager Blames Russia for Leaked DNC Emails ...

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2seaoat
Hospital Bob
Sal
7 posters

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Sal

Sal

... and, he's probably right.

Over the last year there has been a recurrent refrain about the seeming bromance between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. More seriously, but relatedly, many believe Trump is an admirer and would-be emulator of Putin's increasingly autocratic and illiberal rule. But there's quite a bit more to the story. At a minimum, Trump appears to have a deep financial dependence on Russian money from persons close to Putin. And this is matched to a conspicuous solicitousness to Russian foreign policy interests where they come into conflict with US policies which go back decades through administrations of both parties. There is also something between a non-trivial and a substantial amount of evidence suggesting Putin-backed financial support for Trump or a non-tacit alliance between the two men.

Let's start with the basic facts. There is a lot of Russian money flowing into Trump's coffers and he is conspicuously solicitous of Russian foreign policy priorities.

I'll list off some facts.

1. All the other discussions of Trump's finances aside, his debt load has grown dramatically over the last year, from $350 million to $630 million. This is in just one year while his liquid assets have also decreased. Trump has been blackballed by all major US banks.

2. Post-bankruptcy Trump has been highly reliant on money from Russia, most of which has over the years become increasingly concentrated among oligarchs and sub-garchs close to Vladimir Putin. Here's a good overview from The Washington Post, with one morsel for illustration ...

Since the 1980s, Trump and his family members have made numerous trips to Moscow in search of business opportunities, and they have relied on Russian investors to buy their properties around the world.

“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”


3. One example of this is the Trump Soho development in Manhattan, one of Trump's largest recent endeavors. The project was the hit with a series of lawsuits in response to some typically Trumpian efforts to defraud investors by making fraudulent claims about the financial health of the project. Emerging out of that litigation however was news about secret financing for the project from Russia and Kazakhstan. Most attention about the project has focused on the presence of a twice imprisoned Russian immigrant with extensive ties to the Russian criminal underworld. But that's not the most salient part of the story. As the Times put it,

"Mr. Lauria brokered a $50 million investment in Trump SoHo and three other Bayrock projects by an Icelandic firm preferred by wealthy Russians “in favor with” President Vladimir V. Putin, according to a lawsuit against Bayrock by one of its former executives. The Icelandic company, FL Group, was identified in a Bayrock investor presentation as a “strategic partner,” along with Alexander Mashkevich, a billionaire once charged in a corruption case involving fees paid by a Belgian company seeking business in Kazakhstan; that case was settled with no admission of guilt."

Another suit alleged the project "occasionally received unexplained infusions of cash from accounts in Kazakhstan and Russia."

Sounds completely legit.

Read both articles: After his bankruptcy and business failures roughly a decade ago Trump has had an increasingly difficult time finding sources of capital for new investments. As I noted above, Trump has been blackballed by all major US banks with the exception of Deutschebank, which is of course a foreign bank with a major US presence. He has steadied and rebuilt his financial empire with a heavy reliance on capital from Russia. At a minimum the Trump organization is receiving lots of investment capital from people close to Vladimir Putin.

Trump's tax returns would likely clarify the depth of his connections to and dependence on Russian capital aligned with Putin. And in case you're keeping score at home: no, that's not reassuring.

4. Then there's Paul Manafort, Trump's nominal 'campaign chair' who now functions as campaign manager and top advisor. Manafort spent most of the last decade as top campaign and communications advisor for Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian Ukrainian Prime Minister and then President whose ouster in 2014 led to the on-going crisis and proxy war in Ukraine. Yanukovych was and remains a close Putin ally. Manafort is running Trump's campaign.

5. Trump's foreign policy advisor on Russia and Europe is Carter Page, a man whose entire professional career has revolved around investments in Russia and who has deep and continuing financial and employment ties to Gazprom. If you're not familiar with Gazprom, imagine if most or all of the US energy industry were rolled up into a single company and it were personally controlled by the US President who used it as a source of revenue and patronage. That is Gazprom's role in the Russian political and economic system. It is no exaggeration to say that you cannot be involved with Gazprom at the very high level which Page has been without being wholly in alignment with Putin's policies. Those ties also allow Putin to put Page out of business at any time.

6. Over the course of the last year, Putin has aligned all Russian state controlled media behind Trump. As Frank Foer explains here, this fits a pattern with how Putin has sought to prop up rightist/nationalist politicians across Europe, often with direct or covert infusions of money. In some cases this is because they support Russia-backed policies; in others it is simply because they sow discord in Western aligned states. Of course, Trump has repeatedly praised Putin, not only in the abstract but often for the authoritarian policies and patterns of government which have most soured his reputation around the world.

7. Here's where it gets more interesting. This is one of a handful of developments that tipped me from seeing all this as just a part of Trump's larger shadiness to something more specific and ominous about the relationship between Putin and Trump. As TPM's Tierney Sneed explained in this article, one of the most enduring dynamics of GOP conventions (there's a comparable dynamic on the Dem side) is more mainstream nominees battling conservative activists over the party platform, with activists trying to check all the hardline ideological boxes and the nominees trying to soften most or all of those edges. This is one thing that made the Trump convention very different. The Trump Camp was totally indifferent to the platform. So party activists were able to write one of the most conservative platforms in history. Not with Trump's backing but because he simply didn't care. With one big exception: Trump's team mobilized the nominee's traditional mix of cajoling and strong-arming on one point: changing the party platform on assistance to Ukraine against Russian military operations in eastern Ukraine. For what it's worth (and it's not worth much) I am quite skeptical of most Republicans call for aggressively arming Ukraine to resist Russian aggression. But the single-mindedness of this focus on this one issue - in the context of total indifference to everything else in the platform - speaks volumes.

Again, in the context of near total indifference to the platform and willingness to let party activists write it in any way they want, his team zeroed in on one fairly obscure plank to exert maximum force and it just happens to be the one most important to Putin in terms of US policy.

Add to this that his most conspicuous foreign policy statements track not only with Putin's positions but those in which Putin is most intensely interested. Aside from Ukraine, Trump's suggestion that the US and thus NATO might not come to the defense of NATO member states in the Baltics in the case of a Russian invasion is a case in point.

To put this all into perspective, if Vladimir Putin were simply the CEO of a major American corporation and there was this much money flowing in Trump's direction, combined with this much solicitousness of Putin's policy agenda, it would set off alarm bells galore. That is not hyperbole or exaggeration. And yet Putin is not the CEO of an American corporation. He's the autocrat who rules a foreign state, with an increasingly hostile posture towards the United States and a substantial stockpile of nuclear weapons. The stakes involved in finding out 'what's going on' as Trump might put it are quite a bit higher.

There is something between a non-trivial and a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence for a financial relationship between Trump and Putin or a non-tacit alliance between the two men. Even if you draw no adverse conclusions, Trump's financial empire is heavily leveraged and has a deep reliance on capital infusions from oligarchs and other sources of wealth aligned with Putin. That's simply not something that can be waved off or ignored.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing

Hospital Bob

Hospital Bob

But regardless of how this came to light, I would think you would object to the content of those emails.

2seaoat



Why can't a President be bought? Congress is influenced by foreign nations and 47 Senators committed treason.....no surprise here.

Sal

Sal

Bob wrote:But regardless of how this came to light,  I would think you would object to the content of those emails.  

I dunno.

I really haven't paid a lot of attention to it.

I have Hillary email fatigue.

From the little I have read about it, it seems that people are outraged that a couple of DNC dorks were discussing making an issue of Bernie's atheism, but they never did that, so ... yawn.

I agree with Bernie that DWS should resign, but I thought she should've resigned before any of this broke due to sheer incompetence.

dumpcare



Wasserman just resigned effective at end of convention.

2seaoat



But regardless of how this came to light, I would think you would object to the content of those emails.


Wow.....a person who has made it very clear he does not belong to the party has people who live their party supporting one of their own......I am absolutely shocked. Oh.....by the way....did Bernie ever become a Democrat? Why do you think Republicans were so insistent on taking a pledge to support their candidate......it was because they did not consider Trump loyal to the Party. He is not. Bernie is not. Bernie is loyal to the American People and issues which help the American people. Trump is loyal to himself and issues which help the Trump brand.

othershoe1030

othershoe1030

Looks like Trump wants to be president so he can build a Trump Tower in Moscow. He and his campaign manager both have a lot of investments in Russia and are hoping to be even tighter with the macho Mr. Putin. Seems like it is always about Trump.

Donald Trump was in his element, mingling with beauty pageant contestants and business tycoons as he brought his Miss Universe pageant to Russia for a much-anticipated Moscow debut. Nonetheless, Trump was especially eager for the presence of another honored guest: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump tweeted Putin a personal invitation to attend the pageant, and a one-on-one meeting between the New York businessman and the Russian leader was scheduled for the day before the show.


http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/06/donald_trump_vladimir_putin.html

Markle

Markle

othershoe1030 wrote:Looks like Trump wants to be president so he can build a Trump Tower in Moscow. He and his campaign manager both have a lot of investments in Russia and are hoping to be even tighter with the macho Mr. Putin. Seems like it is always about Trump.

Donald Trump was in his element, mingling with beauty pageant contestants and business tycoons as he brought his Miss Universe pageant to Russia for a much-anticipated Moscow debut. Nonetheless, Trump was especially eager for the presence of another honored guest: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump tweeted Putin a personal invitation to attend the pageant, and a one-on-one meeting between the New York businessman and the Russian leader was scheduled for the day before the show.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/06/donald_trump_vladimir_putin.html

Amusing and not in the least surprising.  Democrats STILL can't face the FACTS that this is another massive EMAIL scandal because of the Clintons.

Democrats send vicious emails trying to undermine Bernie Sanders.  This proves the corruption and how low the DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz will stoop and how nasty.

Hillary Clinton shows her appreciation by throwing Debbie Schultz under the bus.

Progressives here...LOL...blame RUSSIA!

WHO COULD MAKE THIS UP?

Telstar

Telstar

othershoe1030 wrote:Looks like Trump wants to be president so he can build a Trump Tower in Moscow. He and his campaign manager both have a lot of investments in Russia and are hoping to be even tighter with the macho Mr. Putin. Seems like it is always about Trump.

Donald Trump was in his element, mingling with beauty pageant contestants and business tycoons as he brought his Miss Universe pageant to Russia for a much-anticipated Moscow debut. Nonetheless, Trump was especially eager for the presence of another honored guest: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump tweeted Putin a personal invitation to attend the pageant, and a one-on-one meeting between the New York businessman and the Russian leader was scheduled for the day before the show.


http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/06/donald_trump_vladimir_putin.html


Is it any wonder that the American strong man would be dictator can't wait to hop into bed with his Russian counterpart?

Markle

Markle

Saul Alinsky wrote:... and, he's probably right.

[...]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing

Clinton Campaign Manager Blames Russia for Leaked DNC Emails ... HystericallyLaughingmanandboy

My far left Progressive friend immediately jumps out to BLAME THE MESSENGER rather than the guilty plays who sent the destructive emails.

Just prior to the Republican Convention, low life DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz sent RNC Chair Reince Prebius a scummy Tweet that she was in Cleveland and was available if he needed help to run the convention.

Some might say Karma was at work. I just laugh.

2seaoat



DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz sent RNC Chair Reince Prebius a scummy Tweet that she was in Cleveland and was available if he needed help to run the convention.

Damn......after watching just parts of that disaster, I was sure they accepted her help.

Markle

Markle

2seaoat wrote:DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz sent RNC Chair Reince Prebius a scummy Tweet that she was in Cleveland and was available if he needed help to run the convention.

Damn......after watching just parts of that disaster, I was sure they accepted her help.

Who took over your account?

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