It’s truly baffling how Donald Trump can continue to make incongruous direct and indirect concessions to Russian ties while being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for presidential campaign collusion—with Russia.
The official announcement came on Sunday by Trump’s appointed Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who was Trump’s former presidential campaign finance chairman. Mnuchin lifted sanctions on three Russian companies tied to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska who is a close ally of Vladimir Putin. Deripaska was formerly a business partner with Paul Manafort who was Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign chairman. Manafort was convicted in of bank fraud and tax evasion tied to Russia and later pleaded guilty to conspiracy. Fine people.
Trump is accused of being a lot of things, but his ignorance in thinking we don’t know he’s a Russian puppet—might top the list.
Radio Free Europe reports:
The Treasury said the removal of sanctions was based on the fact that aluminum giant Rusal, its parent company En+, and power firm EuroSibEnergo “have reduced Oleg Deripaska’s direct and indirect shareholding stake in these companies and severed his control.”
“This action ensures that the majority of directors on the En+ and Rusal boards will be independent directors—including U.S. and European persons—who have no business, professional, or family ties to Deripaska or any other [sanctioned individuals], and that independent U.S. persons vote a significant bloc of the shares of En+,” it added.
We’re to believe, with his ties to Trump, Putin and Manafort, that Deripaska is an honest guy who will follow the rules—when Rusal is one of the largest aluminum producers in the world. On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov would not comment on the restrictions being lifted, but did reiterate that according to international law, the sanctions were “illegal” to begin with. Putin polishes his comrades well.
Early this month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed her disgust with the way Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was handling the sanctions. The House majority later passed a resolution on January 17 to stop the U.S. Treasury’s ruling to lift the sanctions, Democratic members did not have enough power to override the decision of the Trump administration and the Senate majority. The Democrats in the Senate did the same thing the day before, with the same results. Knowing there was little chance of the resolutions being passed without a majority in both houses, the votes were seen as being symbolic. But the disapproval was very real.
Democratic Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services Maxine Waters expressed her concerns before voting on the resolution.
“We are dealing with the enemy. We are in an investigation.”
Trump doesn’t care. And he continues to tell the country that he’s been tougher on Moscow than any other president. Perhaps he thinks, like other presidents, he’ll never go to prison. But we have an extraordinary man in office causing extraordinary damage. One could say his prosecutors just might take extraordinary measures. It could happen. It could happen.
UPDATE: Tuesday, Jan 28, 2019 · 20:25 PM · Leslie Salzillo
Monday evening brought a twist in that one of Mitch McConnell’s major donors, Len Blavatnik, who’s tied to Vladimir Putin and all kinds of Russian oligarchs benefited when Trump and McConnell lifted Russian sanctions on Sunday.
Earlier Dallas News reported:
Blavatnik contributed a total of $3.5 million to a PAC associated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Blavatnik contributed $1.5 million to the GOP Senate Leadership Fund PAC in the name of Access Industries and another $1 million in the name of AI-Altep Holdings during the 2015/2016 election season. And as of September 2017, he had contributed another $1 million this year through AI–Altep.
Blavatnik, whose family emigrated to the U.S. in the late 1970s, is a longtime business associate of Russian oligarchs Oleg Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg, both of whom have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Along with McConnell, Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham received hefty sums from Blavatnik as well.
Right now the point being made is that Mitch McConnell, like Donald Trump, is benefiting from direct and indirect ties to Russian oligarchs and Putin, which most likely guided McConnell’s hand into pushing to lift Russian sanction. He has created an extreme conflict of interest at minimum. At most, unless there are more unknowns—he may have committed treason. More will be revealed.