The voiceless Jarvanka may yet come before Congress if not a NY state court. Peter Schweizer of the Mercers’ Government Accountability Institute now has thrown Kushner under the Russian bus signaling further WH chaos and perhaps a start to a separation from the dark money election entrepreneurs. The differences between some Russians’ account of contacts with Kushner also has been interesting compared to those of the White House.
For central figures like Kushner, it was never about understanding who provided the hacked/phished data, just that it served the GOP’s political purposes such as modifying the GOP RNC platform.
Other activities operated with the help of Russian contacts in the background, aided by Americans who didn’t care about patriotism as much as seeing the profit and power on the horizon.
For Kushner, like most debt-centered capitalists, keeping the billion dollar float going is an exciting risk. It is always about exploiting more than one’s own wealth without the same accountability as the national treasury they’re now looting, once they gained the levers of power.
Kompromat is after all the codependent relation of how protection rackets work as the NYS RICO investigation will show. It’s just worse when criminal enterprises suddenly gain national political power.
#TrumpRussia may have worked too well since they would have profited more from the expected 2016 HRC victory, Lacking the attention of #TrumpRussia more quiet profit-making would then continue. Trump would then move on to another media project, acquire wife #4, and play more golf. As the money receded, the RWNJ money machine then would move to Sinclair Broadcasting’s penetration of US local media markets, perhaps with Breitbart News channels on the model of The Blaze.
The problem is that #TrumpRussia worked much too well. Trump actually won in 2016 because of a confluence of events, including DNC incompetence countering Trump in swing-states and key districts, the incomplete revelation in October of the Comey investigation favoring the GOP by affecting HRC, and Comey’s not disclosing the then still covert FISA investigation.
The more recent firing of Comey just affirmed the unintended consequences of his CYA move in October and doubled down on the current optics of guilt and obstruction.
#TrumpRussia was always princeling business as usual, just with additional steps borrowed from other influence-manipulation operations run by other kleptocrats like the Mercers / Kochs.
Their overlaps with Russians were facilitated by intermediaries like Cambridge Analytica as well as a variety of what are revealed now as dodgy, yet normalized real estate deals.
For many players and their big-data quants, the Russian-ness of the connections was (un) intentionally recognized as data and money got transshipped and transferred. These are the real “unmaskings” necessary for an ethical(sic) capitalism to survive.
Micro-targeting does not imply a causal precision, but it is one element of the TrumpRussia story that takes the relationship structure of preexisting money-laundering and grafts a political influence data-mining operation onto it. This tasty chocolate cake has many layers. Kushner and Trump just loved taking credit for the frosting and the sprinkles.
Those even more external players like WikiLeaks may not have realized the amount of Russian IC influence/money on their revelations.
Those leaked publications now seem explicitly coordinated in contradiction of the site’s claim to be immune from influence as a site for whistleblowers.
And then there’s the ever present national ICs that have both confounded the Russian plot as well as circumvented GOP obstruction and cover-up. They have done the best work untainted by US (or Russian) entanglements. It may be real reason why Trump’s angry at the Germans as well as the British.
Concurrent are the necessary financial channels and of course the profit incentives of lifted sanctions, and the expectation of massive multinational new energy resource projects that would also benefit Russia.
It sounds complex to command and coordinate, but easier to rationalize as what seems like conventional post-Soviet Eastern Bloc kleptocracy enlisting capitalist dupes.
Such cronyism overlaps the neoliberal capitalist practices of unregulated, offshored financial dealing. It’s just the structure and agency of entitled avarice enabled by a more chaotic, cyclical change election, with a few wild-card, outside agents. Manafort Destiny.
Policing of dark money is difficult at the national level with questionable regulatory practices or even getting a handle on prosecuting the financial network practices of cross-border capital flows. But there are always GOP pilot fishes who swim with the sharks. Sadly, this is still the political reality that still needs to change.
Russia's Core Interests and Views of the International Order
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Russia's five core interests include defense of the country and the regime, influence in the near abroad, a vision of Russia as a great power, noninterference in domestic affairs, and political and economic cooperation as an equal to other great powers.
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After pursuing closer relations with the West after the Cold War, Russia has become more skeptical and suspicious of the West. From a Russian perspective, the West has refused to recognize Russia's basic interests, and several Western activities, such as support for color revolutions and EU and NATO expansion, threaten Russia's security.
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Russia seeks to strengthen the international order where it perceives the order as benefiting Russia's core interests, as in the United Nations system and certain international economic institutions. In other areas, where Russia perceives the international order as threatening, it has actively sought to undermine the existing order.
Major Points of Contestation Between the United States and Russia
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The most fundamental point of contestation between the United States and Russia on the international order is the status of Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine — all former Soviet republics. Russia views these countries as part of its exclusive sphere of influence, while the United States views these as free, sovereign countries that have the right to join Western institutions.
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U.S. policy toward democracy promotion, foreign intervention, and the free flow of information directly conflict with Russian views and could lead to contestation or conflict.
Recommendations
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Russian and U.S. interests are not always opposed. By recognizing that Russian views of the current international order vary across elements of the order, it becomes possible to identify points of potential cooperation and likely contestation. Where there are shared interests — including avoiding major war, improving economic cooperation, and combating terrorism — cooperation is feasible and potentially desirable.
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In areas where there is contestation, the desired U.S. approach to Russia with respect to the international order critically depends on two factors: (1) the importance of enabling former Soviet republics to freely join Western institutions and (2) whether Russia will limit its aggression in Europe if its interests are recognized.
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If one does not believe that Western institutions should necessarily be open to former Soviet countries or that Russia would undertake aggression if the West ceased to be active in the former Soviet countries, it would make sense to adapt the U.S. approach to order to recognize Russia's sphere of influence.
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However, if one believes that the former Soviet countries should be free to join Western institutions and that Russia has the potential to expand its influence and undertake aggression, it would make sense to double down on the existing approach to order while bolstering U.S. support for its partners.
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U.S. policy toward the European political and security order will likely involve some elements of both recognizing Russian interests and strengthening the existing international order in Europe.