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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSeth Abramson on Avenatti's tweets today
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
Follow at: https://twitter.com/SethAbramson?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Snarkoleptic
(5,996 posts)n/t
joshdawg
(2,646 posts)denbot
(9,898 posts)After Jarvanka could not get funding for his 666 5th ave White Elephant from Qatar, the tRumpkins backed Saudi Arabias attack against Qatar. It gets coursior, and coursior.
Me.
(35,454 posts)OhNo-Really
(3,985 posts)About that Rosneft/Qatar deal. Bloomberg reported finalization this month. This what the Seychelles was mostly about
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-04/china-s-cefc-won-t-buy-rosneft-shares-from-glencore-led-group
If ever geopolitical, diplomatic experts were needed, now is that time. Sadly, we are looking understaffed.
emulatorloo
(44,063 posts)Thanks so much for posting! Great analysis from Abramson.
triron
(21,984 posts)Wwcd
(6,288 posts)What we suspected is now being made true.
Thanks...
erronis
(15,181 posts)I trust "evidence-based" rather than "it was said".
Fortunately there are a lot of very smart people connecting millions of these dots and coming up with some distillations. I'd rather see a list of possibilities with some credibility factors, rather than a "xyz is guilty."
msongs
(67,360 posts)pnwmom
(108,955 posts)triron
(21,984 posts)mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)With the note saying "Paying to Play For Removal Of Sanctions After Glorious Trump Victory!" and the Trumpanzees and the traitorous GOP Congresscritters would tell everyone it was 'a joke' ... then when receipts were produced showing Trump got the money and personally paid off the hackers with it, they would chant "Fake News!!!" in unison, and nothing whatsoever would happen.
We are now dealing with an utterly lawless situation, with our Country literally being held hostage by a Fascist Global Cabal of Wealthy Mafioso. There's no longer any authority higher than Donald Trump. He is Ze Fuhrer, and He IS Ze LAW!
triron
(21,984 posts)Wednesdays
(17,312 posts)mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Nifty way for Putin & his oligarch friends to rake in some 'sanction-free' money, this.
Course this cabal has turned around and back-stabbed Qatar in the meanwhile, vis-a-vis their Saudi client state. Russia probably also wants their shares back, now that they've collected the $$$.
Sorry QIA ... but, ya lay down with dogs ...
Uncle Joe
(58,282 posts)Trump seems to undercut Tillersons remarks on Qatar
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called on a Saudi Arabia-led bloc of Arab nations Friday to immediately ease their blockade of Qatar and urged all involved in the week-long Persian Gulf dispute to quickly resolve their differences, remarks that President Trump seemed to undercut less than an hour later.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
Trump appears to take credit for Gulf nations' move against Qatar
(CNN)President Donald Trump appeared to take credit for the decision of major Gulf nations to cut diplomatic relations with Qatar, an important US ally, putting his stamp of approval on the move despite Pentagon and State Department attempts to remain neutral.
"During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar - look," he tweeted Tuesday.
The tweet could pose difficulties for the US in explaining why it remains in Qatar, host to the one of the Pentagon's largest military bases in the Middle East and a linchpin in the campaign against ISIS. For that reason, the President's 140 character blast may raise concerns within the Defense Department.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-qatar-ideology/index.html
Sophia4
(3,515 posts)This makes perfect sense to me.
I always said the Russian interference was about oil.
Oil is the devil's liqueur.
Believe me on this. I know a bit about the business.
Oil has the potential to destroy our planet. Yet it is relatively easy for very rich people to make a lot of money trading it. And therefore it lures them. If the conclusions drawn from the information we have based on the Trump Tower surveillance videos (Trump's own surveillance videos) and everything else we know adds up to support Abramson's theory in the Tweets (and I suspect it all will), then we have a traitor in the White House.
It makes me sick to my stomach and feel like crying to type this.
If this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it at this time, greed and money are more dear to Trump than America.
How low can a person sink.
I really feel sick upon reading this and seeing the videos.
triron
(21,984 posts)Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)lock them up
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)(THREAD) BREAKING: Steele's dossier says Putin gave Trump a brokerage fee from the sale of 19% of RosneftRussia's oil giant. Today @MichaelAvenatti said a top agent of QIAwhich bought the Rosneft stockwas secretly at Trump Tower 48 hours after the sale.
Russia signs Rosneft deal with Qatar, Glencore
Russian state holding company Rosneftegaz on Saturday signed a deal with the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and commodities trader Glencore (GLEN.L) to sell a 19.5 percent stake in state-owned oil
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-rosneft-privatisation-idUSKBN13Z0QB
2/ @MichaelAvenatti says the man belowmeeting with Michael Cohen and Michael Flynn at Trump Toweris Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, the head of Qatar Investments (a $100 billion division of sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority). QIA bought 19.5% of Rosneft on December 10, 2016.
3/ It has been assumed thatif the Steele Dossier's intel is accuratethe reason the Dossier says the Rosneft sale was of 19% but the amount of Rosneft bought was 19.5% is that the additional 0.5% was transferred to Trump as a brokerage fee. A 0.5% cut would be over $282 million.
4/ @MichaelAvenatti further directs our attention to a claim made by Al-Rumaihi to a third partyattested to under oath by that third partyto the effect that Al-Rumaihi had previously *successfully* bribed Michael Flynn, Trump's top national security advisor during the campaign.
5/ Given doubts about Trump's net worth, a $282 million cut of a Kremlin-orchestrated transaction could have increased Trump's total wealth by 33%+ ifas many suspectTrump is worth well under a billion dollars. Presumably the venal Trump would do anything for that kind of money.
6/ So on December 10, 2016, QIA bought 19.5% of Rosneftof which Steele's sources imply .5% was targeted for Trump. Two days later, QIA visits Trump Tower. A year later, the man who visited Trump Tower confesses to having successfully bribed Trump's top national security advisor.
7/ But it gets worse. According to the NYT, the day after Trump and/or two of his top aides secretly met with the Rosneft buyer at Trump Tower, two top Trump aidesand for all we know Trump himselfsecretly met Putin's banker Sergey Gorkov at Trump Tower.
Kushner and the Russian banker: What we know
The political firestorm around President Donald Trump's top adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner is picking up momentum due to mounting confusion over why Kushner secretly met with the head of a Russ
https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/politics/jared-kushner-russian-banker-what-we-know/index.html
8/ This also casts a new light on the fact that Kushner and Flynnwho we know met Putin's banker on December 13 or 14, 2016also met Russia's ambassador (once again secretly, once again at Trump Tower) on December 1. Kislyak was literally hustled in the back doorlike the others.
9/ A TIMELINE
12/1: Flynn and Kushner and (?)* secretly meet Putin's top US agent.
12/10: Rosneft sells a 19.5% stake.
12/12: Flynn and Cohen and (?) secretly meet the Rosneft buyer.
12/13: Flynn and Kushner and (?) secretly meet Putin's banker.
* (?) could be Trump or others.
10/ But it gets worse. The Steele Dossier says Carter Page was one of the Trump aides used as an intermediary in the bribery of Trump. Where was Carter Page on the day Flynn and Cohen met with the Rosneft buyer (December 12, 2016)? Moscow. Was he meeting with Rosneft people? Yes.
11/ How do we know Page met Rosneft officials the day before, day of, or day after the Rosneft sale? Because he said so on video. Was Page working for Trump on that date? He says no, but Trump's campaign habitually fired people then kept working with them.
12/ In the initial YouTube publication of the Page statementby the Kremlin-run TV station "RT"the Kremlin dubbed over Page's confession that he had met with Rosneft officials during his trip. It's the only part of an hour-long video in which an over-dub appearsthose 6 seconds.
13/ The one constant in *all* of these meetings was Michael Flynnwho was an advisor to Trump when he made a trip to Moscow to dine with Vladimir Putin in December of 2015, a year before the Rosneft sale was finalized. Trump allies have lied about when Flynn joined the campaign.
14/ But it gets worse. The *same day* Cohen and Flynn secretly met the Rosneft buyer at Trump Tower, the head of RosneftIgor Sechinwas in Egypt with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to announce a lucrative deal between Russia and an Italian oil giant, Eni. rosneft.com/press/releases
15/ How does this involve Trump? Well, 60 days before Rosneft acquired a lucrative Egyptian oil field, a top Trump aide secretly set up a meeting between Trump and the Egyptian presidentwhich meeting Trump later lied about. The aide? George Papadopoulos.
New emails show George Papadopoulos communicated with Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon during Trump's 2016 campaign
Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos was in touch with key campaign officials and later administration officials at the height of the election.
http://www.businessinsider.com/emails-george-papadopoulos-communicated-with-bannon-flynn-others-2018-3
16/ What was Papadopoulos' area of expertise at the time he set up the Trump-el-Sisi meeting? Middle East oil exploration. Are there ties between Trump and Italy? YesItaly and Russia were 2 of the 4 nations Trump invited to his first foreign policy speech (a breach of protocol).
17/ The same Italian ambassador Trump invited to his first foreign policy speech (again, breaching protocol to do so) had met personally with Putin in the preceding year to discussyou guessed itoil. So Trump inserted himself repeatedly between Russia and its business partners.
18/ Why did Trump breach protocol to get the Italian ambassadorwho'd met with Putin to talk oilin a room with his aides and Russia's ambassador in April 2016? Why did he lie about Papadopoulos setting a meeting with Egypt's President? Why did Mueller want to flip Papadopoulos?
19/ Why did Trump sneak three suspicious "interviewees" into Trump TowerRussia's ambassador, Putin's banker and the Rosneft buyerin just 12 days in December 2016? Why was Mike Flynnnow a convicted criminalin all three meetings? Why were these men slipped in via the back door?
20/ We know Qatar says it has damaging intel on Kushnerand a Qatari official says he bribed Flynn. Is it perhaps no coincidence that Kushner and Flynn were involved in these meetings which perfectly coincided with the allegedly crooked Qatar-Rosneft deal?
Qatar has damaging information on Kushner, report says
Allegation that Jared Kushner punished Qatar for not investing in real estate deal resurfaces in Mueller probe
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/qatar-has-damaging-information-on-kushner-reports-nbc-news-1.5869124
21/ We know Michael Cohen was acting as an intermediary between companies that wanted to bribe Trump and the then president-elect. In fact, Cohen engaged in such behavior repeatedlywhy should we be surprised if he also did so with the Russians (Rosneft) and top Qatari investors?
22/ Just so, we know for a fact that Michael Flynn spent the transition secretly lobbying Trump. On what topic? Energy and the Middle East. So why would we be surprised if he aided Trump in some energy-related graft to augment his secret lobbying campaign?
White House May Share Nuclear Power Technology With Saudi Arabia ProPublica
The overture follows an intense and secretive lobbying push involving Michael Flynn, Tom Barrack, Rick Gates and even Iran-Contra figure Robert McFarlane.
https://www.propublica.org/article/white-house-may-share-nuclear-power-technology-with-saudi-arabia
23/ That Bud McFarlane worked with Flynn to lobby Trump on Middle East energy issues during the transition and *also* was an invitee to Trump's first foreign policy speech in April 2016along with the Italian and Russian ambassadorssuggests VIP meetings on oil *were* held then.
24/ Don't forget that Team Trump lied about every aspect of the Mayflower Speech in April 2016: who attended and why; why a last-minute change placed the event at the more-private, VIP room-laden Mayflower rather than in its original location; how long Trump was there; and so on.
25/ So Steele's dossier gets another ringing endorsement; thus far not a word of it has been proven falseand a majority of it has been confirmed. Now we know why Mueller wanted Papadopoulos, Flynn and Gates. And why he's gunning for Cohen. He seems to have Trump checkmated. /end
PS/ When Papadopoulos, Flynn and Gates got sweetheart deals, Trump shills like Alan Dershowitz said the deals were proof Mueller had nothing. I said the opposite: the deals were proof the men who got those deals had *everything* on Trump. More and more it's clear that's the case.
PS2/ If you're wondering why a presidential *candidate* would set up a secret meeting with Egypt's president 60 days before a national election, remember that in September 2016 Trump by his own admission thought he'd lose. He was trying to see if he could make money off his run.
PS3/ (To be very clear, "secret" in this context means a meeting whose full slate of details Trump has hidden and/or lied about before the American electorate, in this case, at a minimum, both as to who set up the meeting, and at whose direction, and the purpose of the meeting.)
PS4/ Per the NYT, Kushner and Flynn discussed *the Middle East* with Putin's U.S. agent on December 1, 2016just 11 days before multiple Qatari individuals secretly came to Trump Tower to talk to Flynn/Cohen (having just been involved in the Rosneft deal).
BobTheSubgenius
(11,559 posts)Not just the information in this post, which is plenty eye-opening, to say the least. The fact that the villagers aren't sharpening the pitchforks and making torches is kind of amazing.
How can this be happening? This is Banana Republic behavior - as if there are no consequences for anything they do. I fervently hope there are.
Doodley
(9,036 posts)triron
(21,984 posts)He must have an awful lot on these criminals in the WH.
lindysalsagal
(20,581 posts)This is treason.
Doodley
(9,036 posts)Rhiannon12866
(204,749 posts)Eyeball_Kid
(7,429 posts)When we see what he's done with Russia and Rosneft, we needn't imagine too much to strongly suspect that Trumpy made a deal to collect a huge payoff from China for his advocacy for ZTE. The ONLY reason for Trumpy to come out and "help" a Chinese company is because HE'S GETTING A CUT.