{"id":178282,"date":"2017-06-04T00:01:55","date_gmt":"2017-06-03T18:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=178282"},"modified":"2017-06-07T19:08:29","modified_gmt":"2017-06-07T13:38:29","slug":"kushner-albatross-round-trumps-neck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/kushner-albatross-round-trumps-neck\/","title":{"rendered":"Kushner: Albatross Round Trump\u2019s Neck"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kumar David<\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Prof. Kumar David<\/p><\/div>\n

Russia Inquiry will have to follow the money wherever it leads –\u00a0Kushner: Albatross round Trump\u2019s neck<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh
\nAnd fast by a butcher with an axe
\nBut will suspect \u2018twas he that made the slaughter
\nHenry VI, Pt 2<\/p>\n

Russia poked, probed and interfered in the 2016 US presidential elections; there\u2019s no news value in that. America and all big or regional powers influence foreign events to their advantage and if possible engineer regime change. America is world leader at that game. But I also think Russian interference did not have a discernible effect on the outcome. Trump won because a swathe of America\u2019s underprivileged classes, unemployed white workers and ranting racists, fed up with the elite and \u2018The System\u2019, united in anger. (Elite + System = Swamp). And the Trump base is still holding solid. I am not commenting on the legality of interference, I am speculating it was of little significance in deciding the elections outcome.<\/p>\n

It may turn out that there was undesirable, deplorable or even malfeasant conduct by Trump\u2019s team, with or without the knowledge of the boss, but I would not be surprised if the final finding is that no indictable or even impeachable offence had been committed. There is no smoking gun yet, no hard evidence yet, only a tangle of circumstantial events which are inexplicable. Special Counsel Bob Mueller is a stickler and the expectation is that he will be precise in law and balanced in findings. To that extent we can repose confidence in the residual structures of American democracy, which is a great deal more than we can say for ourselves, especially during the Rajapaksa era.<\/p>\n

I am prepared to hazard a hunch that what will be explosive is not collusion with Russia, but rather, the financial tangles which Mueller\u2019s probe may unravel. Remember \u2018The Untouchables\u2019 never got Al Capone for drug and liquor running; it was comparatively trivial tax evasion that landed him in Alcatraz. Nixon came to grief not for the Watergate break-in but for firing investigator Archibald Cox who was demanding access to White House tapes. That much loved rascal Bill Clinton was not impeached for lechery but for lying to a Grand Jury about his capers. Where an investigation starts and where the trail leads are convoluted. To cut to the point, what I am saying is that it may not be alleged collusion with Russia but family and businesses financial trails the inquiry may unveil that could be fatal.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless for the benefit of readers who have not followed details I will summarise what is known and what suspected about the Russian connections of the three Trump teams \u2013 in chronological order, the campaign team, the transition team and White House-cum-Cabinet.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From Russia with love<\/strong><\/p>\n

The youthful all powerful Grand Wazir of the Trump presidency is Jared Kushner, son-in-law (married to Ivanka) and during the\u00a0campaign and transition, point man for foreign\u00a0officials. During the campaign he\u00a0met Sergey Gorkov\u00a0who has\u00a0ties to Putin\u00a0and runs a bank under U.S. sanctions\u00a0for Russian annexation of Crimea. The meeting was for private business we were told\u2013 not illegal, just extraordinary for the time. Then on 19 December 2016, during the transition, he asked Ambassador Kislak to set up a secret communication channel between the transition team and the Kremlin. A president elect\u2019s Grand Wazir bypassing the nation\u2019s security agencies is astounding! Again not illegal but Kushner has become an albatross round Trump\u2019s neck and will likely be a pre-impeachment sacrificial offering.<\/p>\n

Carter Page a confidant of Trump and his foreign policy\u00a0advisor, later described as \u201ca very low-level\u00a0member of the campaign team\u201d, was fired when his deep connections with Russia came to light. Page had business\u00a0dealings with Russian\u00a0oil and\u00a0gas companies. His partner Paul Manafort had extensive Russian business connections and may have been paid millions by a pro-Russia\u00a0political party in Ukraine. Manafort had links to Julian Assange of\u00a0WikiLeaks and twice predicted the release of documents. He\u00a0was kicked out of\u00a0the transition team when these connections and links to oligarch Deripaska were exposed.<\/p>\n

Michael Flynn, Trump\u2019s intelligence expert, was appointed\u00a0National\u00a0Security Advisor but resigned in three weeks after it was disclosed he had\u00a0had dealings with Ambassador\u00a0Kislyak\u00a0and lied about it to Vice President\u00a0Mike Pence. Jeff Sessions, Trump\u2019s Attorney General (Justice Minister) was compelled to recuse himself from the Russia probe after news of meetings with\u00a0Kislyak\u00a0which he concealed during his\u00a0confirmation hearing, came to light.<\/p>\n

Loquacious and quick witted, Sergey Kislyak fits the mould of savvy long-serving envoys who shaped Moscow-Washington relations. He acts strategically to engage family members of foreign leaders thought to be useful allies. The Chinese are past masters at this as we know from the Rajapaksa case.<\/p>\n

I do not wish to burden readers with an information overload; a summary comment will do as catchall: There has been a phenomenal amount of contact between Trump\u2019s teams and family, and the Kremlin and Russian officials. However as I will detail next, this pales beside the financial ties between Trump\u2019s businesses, and Russian oligarchs of dubious repute and Russian and Kazakh mobsters.<\/p>\n

Financial jabberwocky<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHow quickly nature falls into revolt when gold becomes her object\u201d Shakespeare\u2019s Henry IV moaned in Part II, Act 4. Shoddy and shady business dealings, dubious Russian and Central Asian mafia connections and lying under oath are the subject of several recent studies and documentaries. All pertain to the period prior to the presidency, perhaps prior to the candidacy, I think. Authors of three books are two Trump biographers James Henry and Michael d\u2019Antonio and an attorney Fred Obelander. Documentaries, available on YouTube, are \u2018Dubious Friends of Donald Trump\u2019 (Dutch producer Zembla, 2017), a BBC Newsnight programme in 2013 and \u2018Donald Trump\u2019s business links to the mob\u2019 (BBC; March 2016).<\/p>\n

If a fraction of what these books and documentaries allege is true it\u2019s hair-raising. There have been dicey American presidents before but this is the daddy of them all. Mob work was run from the Trump Tower (by an outfit called Bayrock Co.), close ties are alleged to convicted crime boss Felix Slater and a big Russian mafia figure, Semion Mogilevich. There was a partnership with Alif, a crooked Kazak billionaire; Trump was the front for Alif to penetrate US business. If all this is all fabrication and fake news we should have seen a slew of libel suits long ago.<\/p>\n

The reason Trump broke with tradition and refused to bare his tax filings, as all previous presidential candidates have done, is palpable; it would have brought to light the timbre of his business associates, and it could have exposed at best shoddy at worst illegal transactions. Mueller\u2019s probe will drag much of this into the open; this explains Trump\u2019s apoplectic anger. Mueller has called for Trump\u2019s family financial and loan documents to be handed over. Again, Henry IV, Pt.2 offers an apposite line: \u201cUneasy lies the head that wears a crown\u201d.<\/p>\n

American security and intelligence agencies are leaking like a sieve. A day does not go by without another embarrassing revelation creeping into the New York Times or Washington Post. It is being said, correctly, that the Deep State and the liberal media are out to get him; but I have also heard the defence that federal officials are at the end of their wits how to limit the absurdity of this administration and that without the media there would have been no Congressional investigations or Special Counsel.<\/p>\n

Popinjay Trump\u2019s braggadocio strutting on the European stage won his country no friends. Angela Merkel declared after his departure \u201cEurope can no longer depend on the US\u201d. Perhaps Trump took his cue from Henry IV, Pt.2: \u201cBe it thy course to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels, the action hence borne out may waste the memory of former days\u201d. Or maybe Henry VI, Pt. 3 takes a nod in the direction of Vladimir Putin: \u201cHow can tyrants safely govern home, unless abroad they purchase great alliances?\u201d Let me not prolong my \u201cromp with the Henrys\u201d, as a friend calls it, and settle on \u201cThou foul accursed minister of hell!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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