It seems to me that
what we do know already
is the drama:First, Trump associates Russia links:
Sessions, President Trump’s Attorney General, had two conversations with Ambassador Kislyak during the 2016 presidential election.
Tillerson, President Trump’s Secretary of State, worked on energy projects in Russia for two decades during his career at Exxon. He has publicly described his “very close relationship” with President Putin and was awarded Russia’s Order of Friendship in 2013, the highest state honor possible for a foreigner.
Kushner met with Ambassador Kislyak during the Presidential transition. The White House later acknowledged that following that meeting, Ambassador Kislyak requested a second meeting, which Kushner had a deputy attend. However, at Kislyak's request, Kushner did later meet with Sergey Gorkov, the head of Russia's state-owned development bank, who has close ties to President Putin. The U.S. placed this bank on its sanctions list following Russia's annexation of Crimea. The Senate Intelligence Committee plans to question Kushner about his meetings with Russian officials.
Trump, Jr., President Trump’s son, met with Fabien Baussart, a leader of a Syrian opposition group backed by the Russian government, and others about how the U.S. could work with Russia on the Syrian conflict weeks before Donald Trump was elected President. He has also been quoted saying that his father’s businesses “see a lot of money pouring in from Russia”, and that he had visited Russia on business over a half-dozen times.
Manafort, who has business connections to Russia and Ukraine, was hired as Trump’s campaign manager in March 2016. He then resigned in August of the same year, after reports surfaced that suggested he had received $12.7 million from Victor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s pro-Russia former president. It was recently revealed by AP that Manafort proposed in a strategy plan from as early as June 2005 that he would work to influence politics, business deals, and media inside the U.S. and Europe to benefit Putin. This plan was pitched to Oleg Deripaska, a "Russian aluminum magnate" with close ties to Putin. Manafort eventually signed a $10 million contract with Deripaska in early 2006. The Trump Administration and Manafort have both said that Manafort never worked for Russian interests.
Carter Page, hired as a foreign policy advisor to Trump’s 2016 campaign, was known to have deep ties to Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas company. In July 2016, a month after Russia's DNC meddling was reveled in the press, Page traveled to Moscow to make a speech. The Trump campaign approved this trip, saying he would not be traveling as an official representative of the campaign. In the speech he delivered in Moscow, he criticized American foreign policy as being hypocritical – remarks which ultimately led to his resignation from Trump’s campaign. Before joining the campaign, he was a businessman “of no particular renown” working in the Moscow branch of Merrill Lynch before creating his own consulting agency.
Carter Page met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at the Republican National Convention in 2016. Buzzfeed recently reported that Page had met with a Russian intelligence agent named Victor Podobnyy in 2013, who was reportedly trying to recruit Page. Podobnyy was later charged by the U.S. for acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government.
Roger Stone: Stone, a former advisor to Trump, had back channel conversations with Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, which is the organization that published the DNC leaks and Podesta emails during the 2016 elections. He also had exchanges with Guccifer 2.0 -- a hacker believed to be linked to Russia involved in the 2016 hacking of Democratic National Committee emails -- in August 2016. Also in August, he tweeted "it will soon [be] Podesta's time in the barrell." About two months later, Wikileaks began posting John Podesta's emails.
Felix Sater, formerly a senior advisor to the Trump Organization, is a Russian-born Bayrock associate with extensive involvement in organized crime.
Alex Shnaider, born in Russia, co-financed a real estate project with Trump. Shnaider’s father-in-law, Boris J. Birshtein, was a close business associate of Sergei Mikhaylov, the head of one of the largest branches of the Russian mob.
JD Gordon, a national security advisor for the Trump campaign met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July, who he told he would like to improve US - Russia relations. He advocated for a change to the GOP national platform to make their policies more pro-Russian and less pro-Ukraine, a change which Gordon said was directly supported by then-candidate Donald Trump.
Wilbur Ross: Ross, President Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, was the top shareholder in the Bank of Cyprus, an institution with deep Russian ties and investors who made fortunes under Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to McClatchy, the banking system in Cyprus, because of its dependence on Russian investors, is money-laundering concern for the US State Department. Ross served as the vice chairman of the board of directors for the Bank of Cyprus. The second largest investor in the Bank of Cyprus was Viktor Vekselberg, who once served on the Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft, which is under partial sanction by the US Treasury Department. Vekselberg is known to have a close relationship with Vladimir Putin. In February, six senators sent a letter to Ross inquiring about his relationship to Vekselberg. The senators also inquired about Ross’s relationship with Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, who is also linked to the Bank of Cyprus, was a former KGB agent, and is believed to be a Putin associate.
Erik Prince: Prince, who had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, had a secret meeting with a Russian close to President Putin, arranged by the United Arab Emirates, the Washington Post recently reported. The meeting reportedly took place around January 11, 2017 on the Seychelles islands, and was allegedly part of an effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Russia and then President-elect Trump. The UAE agreed to facilitate the meeting in order to explore Russia's willingness to curtail its relationship with Iran. Prince was a supporter of Trump, and has ties to Steve Bannon and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who is his sister. He was also seen in Trump transition offices in December.
Flynn was warned in 2014, when he was retiring from the military, not to accept payments from foreign governments without advance approval from the Pentagon.
That's just the background we know about Trump's teams and Russia, so here is a rough timeline of the more dramatic events:
Steve Bannon provided a platform for Richard Spencer the white nationalist.
KKK and other white nationalists express support and hopefulness regarding a Trump administration.
Russian state-driven hackers interfere with the 2016 US presidential election.
Trump wins electoral college votes and becomes POTUS.
Obama warns Trump about Flynn in person.
Trump's admin states that it looks forward to "a strong and enduring relationship with Russia and the people of Russia."
Trump picks Flynn as NSA, knowing that Flynn had attended a lavish dinner in Moscow in 2015 at which he sat next to President Vladimir Putin, he had received a speaking fee from a Russian television network that U.S. officials consider a propaganda outlet.
Flynn's son has spread lies on twitter and was cut out of the Trump transition picture.
Sanctions blocking deal with Rex Tillerson's Exxon and Russian oil are put in place.
Flynn contacts Russian ambassador and discusses lifting those sanctions.
Putin is indifferent about the sanctions and Trump praises Putin.
Trump publicly denies that he has ties with Russia.
The buzzfeed 'Russian dossier' linking Trump to lots of Russian bad stuff leaked and very little is proven untrue.
During confirmation hearings, Jess Sessions claims that he “did not have communications with the Russians” when prompted by Senator Al Franken.
Sean Spencer denies Flynn discussed the Russian sanctions with Kislyak.
Pence publicly denies Flynn discussed the Russian sanctions with Kislyak.
FBI interviews Flynn about Kislyak and Flynn denies discussing sanctions.
Spicer again says that he has asked Flynn about the sanctions discussions with Kislyak and that it is true Flynn didn't speak about that with him.
Sally Yates warns the WH that Flynn had indeed discussed sanctions with Kislyak.
Sally Yates is fired by Trump.
Trump invites Comey to dinner and asks him for his political loyalty.
Fox news confronts Trump with the fact that Putin "is a killer", and Trump puts America on the same moral level as Russia's administration.
Flynn flatly denies to Washington Post discussing sanctions with Kislyak.
Flynn spokesperson retracts his denial of discussing sanctions and more than 2 weeks after Sally Yates informed WH of Flynn's crime, Pence says it's the first he's heard of it.
Trump says he is not aware of the situation when asked about Flynn's admittance.
Flynn resigns over Trump intending to fire him over misleading Pence.
Trump invites Comey to dinner and asks him to drop the investigation into Flynn as part of the invesitgation into the Trump admin's links with Russia.
Reports of Sessions' meetings with Kislyak surface, so he recuses himself from any investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump calls the Russia investigation premises nonsense and fake news.
House Russia hearings are cancelled indefinitely.
Flynn asks for immunity in exchange for testifying to the House and Senate intelligence committees investigating Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election.
Nunes steps aside from the Russia investigation – because he himself is under investigation. The House Ethics Committee, in a separate announcement, said it was looking into allegations that Nunes had improperly disclosed classified material, the same material involved in his nighttime White House meeting.
After Syria missile strike, Putin asked Trump to meet with Russian officials.
Trump tweets 'Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton'.
Comey defends his decision to alert Congress just days before the presidential election that he would further investigate Hillary Clinton’s emails. "It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election,” he said.
Trump says ‘Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax’.
Trump fires Comey and the White House releases memos from deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions. Rosenstein ties his recommendation to dismiss Comey to his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, but then Trump goes on TV to say that actually it was his own idea, after Rosenstein threatens to resign over Trump trying to use him as a scapegoat.
In his dismissal letter, Trump includes this passage: “While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau.”
White House says the rank-and-file of the FBI had lost confidence in Comey.
Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at the White House and leaks classified information to them (from a source that had not authorized the U.S. to share it with the Russians), and calls Comey "a nut job" and fired him over the pressure on the Russia probe.
Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, testifying at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, contradicts the White House, saying that the rank-and-file of the FBI had not lost confidence in Comey.
Trump threatens Comey with secret tape recordings.
There are plenty more details also, but, really, are you denying that there are no smoke signals worthy of investigation? And if there are flames behind that smoke, then would Trump not be VERY interested in covering them up, perhaps?
Trump is apparently selling out American liberties in order to forge deep connections with Russia - whether that is purely business-driven, or there is a deeper "white world" agenda, remains to be discovered. Just the moral and political alignment with Russia should be enough to sound alarm bells for true American patriots, it seems, but who knows - gun toting, macho, homophobic, pseudo-Christian, Russian-lady-lovin, Americans are an already established stereotype, and such a 'lifestyle' could gain more popularity I guess....
given time... and so thus any darker Truths about the Russian connections are being sabotaged through fake news, obstruction of justice attempts, and firings?
I would be particularly interested, Paul, to know what sympathies you have, as a Trump supporter, towards the Russians, for example?