Von Clownstick actually thought his ambassador to Denmark was seriously working on the deal, so when the Danes’ PM laughed at him he called her ‘nasty’. Even if there had been preliminary discussions, democracy intervened and Trump failed to notice that the Danish government had changed leadership in the interim. Reuters has noted Danish intelligence releasing a nearly concurrent forged letter to Tom Cotton from Russian spies during the period when Trump wanted another distraction while under fire for “Arms for Dirt” in Ukraine.
Reuters reports, in a broader story on Russian, Chinese and Iranian espionage efforts, that Trump may have been punked into his nutty idea to buy Greenland by a Russian spy operation, facilitated in part by that expert-on-everything-particularly-foreign-affairs Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR).
The Danish prime minister said at the time the idea was “absurd,” which prompted Trump to cancel a trip to Denmark and to call the prime minister “nasty.” The likelihood of Russian spies being behind the letter addressed to Cotton surfaced in 2019 in Denmark not long after the idea was floated. It was viewed then, as now, as an effort to disrupt relations between Denmark, which has important interests in the North Atlantic, and the U.S.
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COPENHAGEN, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Denmark warned on Thursday of a rising espionage threat from Russia, China, Iran and others, including in the Arctic region where global powers are jostling for resources and sea routes.
The Danish Security and Intelligence Service said there had been numerous examples of attempted spying on Denmark, whose active global role had helped make it a tempting target.
"The threat from foreign intelligence activities against Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands has increased in recent years," Anders Henriksen, head of counterintelligence at the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, said in a report.
Greenland and the Faroe Islands are sovereign territories under the Kingdom of Denmark and also members of the Arctic Council forum. Copenhagen handles most of their foreign and security matters.
The report cited a 2019 incident of a forged letter purporting to be from Greenland's foreign minister to a U.S. senator saying an independence referendum was in the offing.
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