It’s about money for Trump, and family. The first sell-out of US foreign policy, to Saudi Arabia, Russia, other Arab countries may have launched when a Rosneft oil exec “mentioned” to Carter Page in Moscow, as the goals “are being scored” by Ronaldo, a pending Rosneft privatization sale. In unclassified testimony, Page describes hearing of the future sale of a slice of Russia’s largest oil company, as he watched the Euro Cup 2016 with Andrey Baranov, head of Investor Relations for Rosneft, on July 6, 2016. The $11 billion sale, executed in December 2016, transferred 19.5% of Rosneft to the Qatar Investment Authority and to a Swiss commodities company, Glencore.
Yes, I know Ronaldo’s marvelous hat trick yesterday in the 3-3 Portugal v Spain tie game in the World Cup was exhilarating — but this exchange goes back two years earlier to a EURO 2016 match.
If you’ve read about the multi-million dollar rescues, by a Qatar-affilated company, of Kushner Co. debt at 666 Fifth Ave (yes, it is 666 Fifth) and other Kushner properties and the Rosneft purchase by Qatar in December 2016 — plus the “back channel” meetings with UAE and Russian reps — you can sniff a money trail to follow and a timeline to track.
The timeline may begin with the Moscow meeting in the summer of 2016 between Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page and Andrey Baranov, head of Investor Relations for Rosneft. In testimony, Page talked about a group viewing the Portugal v. Wales game at a bar in Moscow (the Euro Cup game [UEFA] was played in Lyon, France). This info comes from testimony that Page gave to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) in November 2017, where Carter Page agreed to appear on the condition that his testimony be made public. HPSCI agreed to Page’s request that his testimony be published — these exchanges of Page with committee members are not from any leak. [The meeting in July in Moscow was 2 weeks before Trump would clinch the RNC nomination in Cleveland.]
MR. SCHIFF: Did you or did you not discuss with Mr. Baranov in July a potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft?
MR. PAGE:
…. He may have briefly mentioned it when we were looking up from this Portugal — Ronaldo, whoever the — you know the goals that are being scored. That may have come up.
But I have no definitive recollection of that. And certainly, what never came up, certainly, was my involvement in any -- that type of a transaction.
MR. PAGE: There was an event, and that’s where we ended up meeting. You know it was a group event at a bar in Moscow to watch the, I believe it was, Europa Cup. It was Portugal, I believe, versus Wales.
[Note — 2 source locations to read Page’s HPSCI testimony of Nov 2, 2017. Can access (1) searchable text here, or (2) original PDF here, as published by the committee. ]
So during Carter Page’s July 2016 trip to Russia, where the prospective privatization of a share of Rosneft was previewed to Page, it was only “mentioned” to him during a soccer game and while Portugal star players Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani were scoring goals. (Page name-checks only Ronaldo.)
Page also clarifies that, where it “may have (been) briefly mentioned”, the sale would not create an involvement of Page himself. That’s his testimony, and perhaps it is that straightforward.
News reports (WaPo, BBC) have revealed that after Page’s July 2016 travel, a FISA warrant to surveil him was approved, in October 2016.
Carter Page traveled again to Moscow on Dec. 8, 2016, just one day after the Rosneft Oil privatization deal was signed. The Rosneft sale in December was for a 19.5% stake, sold to a sovereign wealth fund of Qatar and Swiss commodities firm Glencore, for a cool $11 billion.
Then 5 days after the Dec. 7 sale, who shows up in Trump Tower, but the head of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Ahmed al-Rumaihi, on Dec. 12, for meetings. (“Qatari investor confirms he was at Trump Tower meetings” — this was revealed a month ago in May, following publication of elevator CCTV video.)
No published news gives any reason to believe that Page was a direct beneficiary of financial gain from the sale. Reading through his testimony, it is more than possible that Page himself did not benefit from any exchange, crime, or quid pro quo, between Russia, Trump officials, Qatar or other financial intermediaries.
So even if Page engaged in no crime, and that is my assumption, he may be witness to it; and electronic intercepts may pick up communications between Trump transition members, Page, and Rosneft and government officials in Moscow in December.
Recall that British investigator Christopher Steele (who worked with FBI to break open the FIFA bribery corruption scandal which led to 14 indictments for FIFA corruption by DoJ, and the ouster of FIFA president Sepp Blatter, in 2015) was compiling intelligence on Russian efforts to elect Donald Trump, which mentioned Carter Page’s meeting with a Rosneft official. (Can see the Sports Illustrated account of Steele’s work busting the FIFA corruption.)
The Steele dossier (2016), which was not made public until January 2017, said sources revealed that a Rosneft official was offering to Trump or his associates a “brokerage” fee from an upcoming sale of 19% of Rosneft, in exchange for lifting sanctions on Russia imposed for its invasion of Crimea/Ukraine and Trump agreeing to “sideline” the issue of the annexation. The first note about a meeting of Page with a Rosneft executive was in the 19 July 2016 file within the dossier; the additional detail about the alleged “brokerage” offer was in a follow-up section about the meeting dated 18 October 2016.
Note that Page says in his testimony that the dossier misidentifies the person he met with in July. He says he met with Andrey Baranov and says he did not meet Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft. (Baranov works for Sechin.) Also, Page in testimony says he was not part of an offer for a quid pro quo, or fee from the sale.
You can work forward from the Russian connection, the RNC convention, Trump team meetings with other country nationals, even prior to the inauguration, and subsequent foreign policy / financial lending to see what may have emerged from Russia’s overtures.
During the RNC convention in Cleveland in mid-July, Trump operatives stunned party officials when they demanded that a platform plank be watered down about the defense of Ukraine from Russian aggressors. In testimony by Page, he acknowledged a congratulatory email he sent to the campaign on that Convention initiative. “As for the Ukraine amendment, excellent work.” [ Email to J.D. Gordon, Joseph Schmitz, Bert Mizusawa, Chuck Kubic, Walid Phares, Tera Dahl dated July 14, 2016, from C. Page]
As for the Ukraine amendment, excellent work.
Recently, in March the Trump administration approved anti-tank missiles to Ukraine for its defense, but with unusual, stringent limits: the Javelin missiles cannot be deployed to the “engagement line” where Russian forces are encroaching in Ukraine. (More on this, below.)
Was a brokerage fee, or similar slice, ever given to anyone in the Trump camp?
After months of resistance by potential lenders and suitors, while the Kushner Cos. scrambled to find new funding for its overleveraged ($1.2B loan for the 666 address) properties, last year in November a fund backed by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) extended a loan of $184 million to Kushner Cos. to refinance a Chicago skyscraper.
“Apollo [Global Management] made the loan to Kushner Companies on Nov. 1, 2017, according to public records. …. One of the largest investors in Apollo’s real estate trust is the Qatari government’s investment fund, the Qatar Investment Authority.” [NY Times, 2/28/18]
After Trump’s election, the Kushner family at first tried, and failed, to secure lending from Qatari aristocracy. Jared Kushner tried to obtain $500M of funding from former Qatari prime minister and billionaire investor Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, and his father Charles met in April 2017 with the finance Minister of Qatar. [See “Qatar Refused to Invest in Kushner’s Firm. Weeks Later, Jared Backed a Blockade of Qatar.”] Jared also met with the head of Russia’s Vnesheconombank (VEB), Sergey Gorkov, in Dec. 2016 before inauguration. “The senior White House adviser has insisted that this meeting was strictly political; Gorkov maintains it was strictly business.”
A further rescue, of 666 Fifth Ave., will be extended by Brookfield Asset Management, in which QIA is a major investor [ny.curbed.com]. See also: Kushners Near Deal With Qatar-Linked Company for Troubled Tower (NYT, May 17).
Per Bloomberg, June 1, 2018:
“Drowning in debt payments, Kushner Cos. brought in Vornado to help right the ship. But the firms couldn’t agree about the future of the building, which was beset by low occupancy and debt payments that overwhelmed income. The building lost $25 million last year.
“Kushner Cos. has said it will partner with a unit of Brookfield Asset Management in yet another attempt to turn around the property.”
The peculiar, and 1-sided favoritism toward Russia, by President Trump is astounding, and not fully recognized.
Russian funded forces attack US military position in Syria
For example, Russian-paid mercenary forces attacked US-Kurd positions in Syria (U.S. Special Forces base near Deir al-Zour) near the Euphrates River on February 7, ignoring our de-confliction warnings to retreat. Then our military counteroffense caused bloody casualties to the Russian-backed forces (no US casualties), but hundreds of Russians were killed, according to Mike Pompeo’s testimony to Congress on April 12.
For 2 months Trump said not a word to the public about the Feb. Russian-led attack, until he made remarks on April 18 at Mar-a-Lago:
"We had a very, very severe ... fight in Syria recently [in February] between our troops and Russian troops and that’s very sad," the president said. "Many people died in that fight."
Gen. Jim Mattis did address the battle on Feb 8, in a DoD press availability, where he called the Russian attack “perplexing”. > > “I cannot give you any explanation for why they would do this, moved against SDF positions, Syrian Democratic Force positions, with U.S. soft there. …. I have no idea why they would attack there, the forces were known to be there, obviously the Russians knew.”
On March 20, Trump and Putin spoke by phone.
On April 3, Trump announced he wants to remove US troops from Syria, against the advice of his Nat Sec staff.
The mercenary company, Wagner Company, happens to be funded largely by “Putin’s chef,” oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is under indictment by US DoJ for allegedly funding the internet troll farm that messed with, and intruded in, our election to help elect Donald Trump.
The attack is not just virtual, via internet. It is against our military forces too. (See “Putin’s chef cooks up a storm” [paywall] or WaPo: “Putin ally said to be in touch with Kremlin, Assad before his mercenaries attacked U.S. troops”. WSJ editorial, "Russia’s Attack on U.S. Troops: Putin’s mercenaries are bloodied in Syria, as he tried to drive Trump out”.
For the weapons we’ve provided to Ukraine this year, we have bizarrely constrained the government to not deploy them at the line of battle where Russia is advancing on sovereign territory.
“ ‘Yes, as of today, there are certain limitations introduced regarding Ukraine,’ Georgiy Tuka, the country’s deputy minister for occupied territories said on May 6. ….
“The U.S. demand that the Javelins must be kept out of the combat zones was confirmed by U.S. envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker.
“Nevertheless, such a low-key approach drew criticism from some foreign policy experts, who called for more overt support for Ukraine.
“ ‘Trump administration should let Ukraine deploy its new anti-tank weapons to the front lines, rather than insisting they be warehoused under lock and key in western Ukraine,’ former U.S. Department of Defense official and currently a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council Michael Carpenter commented on his Twitter page on May 3. ‘What’s the point then?’ “
Finally, exiting the Iran deal helps Russia by boosting oil prices. The US exit from the agreement, on top of production cutbacks by OPEC members and Russia, has added to momentum pushing oil prices up 40% since start of the year, giving a needed boost to Russia’s fuel-dependent treasury.
US foreign policy, toward Arab countries (Qatar, Saudi Arabia), Russia and Iran and our allies, has been more than strange. The support of a 4-nation Arab boycott and blockade of Qatar, where we have a US air force base, Al Udeid Air Base, with 10,000 US personnel, since reversed in our position after Qatari-linked loans were green-lighted for Kushner, shows the foreign policy judgment of the White House is clouded by financial and overseas influences. Seriously clouded.
We should learn if any of the mystery of US foreign policy toward friend and foe stems from the Rosneft-Qatari oil deal, and the money that changed hands. An early introduction to the deal was “mentioned” while Cristiano Ronaldo was scoring.
By the way, Portugal won the EURO 2016 matchup that day, on July 6, it was 2-0. Ronaldo and Nani were the scorers for Portugal.