In the scheme of things, Trump's efforts to build a Moscow Trump Tower will soon seem like, well, [View all]

[OnDoutside]

chump change. This wasn't the only deal that was cooking. What will probably come out, in time, are

1) The $500BN Exxon joint venture with Rosneft in Siberia which should drag Tillerson and Carter Page into another Trump kickback

The Rosneft Commission: Trump’s Inevitable Downfall Will Involve Money, and Lots Of It

THAT THERE WAS COLLUSION, in the popular if not legal use of the world, between the Trump campaign and Putin’s Russia is now impossible to deny. Manafort and Gates are indicted. Papadopoulos, the liaison between the campaign and the Russians, has been cooperating with the feds. Junior was on the cover of Time magazine under the headline RED HANDED. Flynn may be arrested before I finish typing this paragraph, Cambridge Analytica’s Robert Mercer suddenly divested his interests in Breitbart and his own hedge fund, and Sessions and Kushner both look like they’re in trouble deep, at a minimum.

None of this has been enough to convince Republicans to repudiate their compromised president, and Trump himself stand firm in his insistence that he is innocent of all charges, and that Hillary is the one who colluded with Russia — never mind that this throws all logic out the window. The arcana of Trump/Russia is too complex to be a proper smoking gun. As I’ve written before, what will doom Trump ultimately is evidence of what he’s gained financially from his relationship with Putin. If the Steele dossier can be believed, the quid pro quo has something to do with Rosneft, the Russian state-owned oil company. MOST AMERICANS have never heard of it, but Rosneft is one of the world’s largest publicly traded oil companies, with revenues of $91 billion in 2015 ranking 23rd overall among oil and gas concerns. Its majority owner is the Government of Russia — in other words, Vladimir Putin and his circle of oligarchs, including Rosneft CEO/Putin BFF Igor Sechin.

In 2012, Rosneft entered into a $500 billion joint venture with ExxonMobil, which at the time was run by current Secretary of State Rex Tillerson; it was this mammoth joint venture, apparently, that inspired Putin to award Tillerson the Medal of Friendship in 2013. The oil reserves in the Arctic, the reason for the venture, are estimated to contain 85 billion barrels. At a conservative price of $50 a barrel, that amounts to a staggering $4.25 trillion in potential gross revenue. Trillion, with a T.

These are dizzying numbers — but Putin will not see a kopek as long as the US continues to impose sanctions on Russia. Small wonder, then, that Putin and Sechin want the sanctions lifted as soon as possible. If and when that happens, the Exxon deal would be back on, and money would begin to pour in to the depleted Kremlin coffers. Whether or not there proves to be collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, Putin clearly preferred Candidate Trump, if for no other reason than the GOP nominee was, and is, much more likely to lift those pesky sanctions than was Hillary Clinton, whom Putin perceived as a mortal enemy. The question is: How much were the Russian president and his cronies willing to pay to affect that result?

More at

https://medium.com/@gregolear/the-rosneft-commission-trumps-inevitable-downfall-will-involve-money-and-lots-of-it-81e87778288f


2) Building of Russian built Nuclear Plants in the middle East inc Saudi Arabia which includes Flynn, Kushner and Erik Prince

Exclusive: Mideast nuclear plan backers bragged of support of top Trump aide Flynn

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Backers of a U.S.-Russian plan to build nuclear reactors across the Middle East bragged after the U.S. election they had backing from Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn for a project that required lifting sanctions on Russia, documents reviewed by Reuters show. The documents, which have not previously been made public, reveal new aspects of the plan, including the proposed involvement of a Russian company currently under U.S. sanctions to manufacture nuclear equipment. That company, major engineering and construction firm OMZ OAO, declined to comment.

The documents do not show whether Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, took concrete steps to push the proposal with Trump and his aides. But they do show that Washington-based nuclear power consultancy ACU Strategic Partners believed that both Flynn, who had worked as an adviser to the firm as late as mid-2016, and Trump were firmly in its corner. “Donald Trump’s election as president is a game changer because Trump’s highest foreign policy priority is to stabilize U.S. relations with Russia which are now at a historical low-point,” ACU’s managing director, Alex Copson, wrote in a Nov. 16, 2016 email to potential business partners, eight days after the election.

White House officials did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. ACU declined comment and also declined to make Copson available for an interview. Previously they told a congressional committee that they had not had any dealings with Flynn since May 2016, before Trump became the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.The email was titled “TRUMP/PUTIN ME Marshall plan CONCEPT.” ME stands for Middle East. The title, evoking the post-World War Two plan to rebuild Western European economies, reflected the hopes of the plan’s backers that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin could cooperate on a project that would boost Middle East economies.

This is the email http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/TEST-TEST/0100520D4JR/pdf-redacted2.pdf

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-flynn-nuclear-exclusive/exclusive-mideast-nuclear-plan-backers-bragged-of-support-of-top-trump-aide-flynn-idUSKBN1DV5Z6

Also

SEYCHELLES + UAE + GEORGE NADER + MICHAEL FLYNN = MIDDLE EAST MARSHALL PLAN?

The Mueller investigation is pursuing a new investigative thread related to the UAE and possible corruption that seemingly has little connection to an investigation into collusion with Russia. This has left many observers wondering how the Nader-UAE corruption investigation actually ties into the Russia investigation? But these two investigative threads may in fact be directly connected by way of the “Mideast Marshall Plan” backed by Michael Flynn.

There has been intense speculation around a mysterious meeting in the Seychelles between representatives of the Trump administration and Russia. Right before Trump’s inauguration, Erik Prince, a prominent Trump backer and founder of the Blackwater private security company, met with:

UAE Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Zayed (MbZ)
George Nader, a lobbyist for the UAE lobbyist who is now cooperating with the Mueller investigation, and
Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russia Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia’s sovereign wealth fund.

The Plan and its Backers

The so-called Mideast Marshall Plan was a convoluted idea that brought the US and Russia together to build nuclear power plants in the Middle East, possibly in conjunction with Ukrainian, Israeli, and French interests. The Russians would manufacture much of the nuclear equipment, while the US would provide certain nuclear technology as well as security for the plants to limit the proliferation risk. Hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for the scheme would come from the Gulf States, particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Thus, the three critical players in this scheme would be the US, Russia, and a wealthy Gulf state (or states) — perfectly mirroring the representatives at the Seychelles meeting.

The dizzying timeline of meetings and contacts during the transition tracks with a concerted effort to push the Mideast Marshall Plan.

November 2016: ACU pushes the plan to Flynn.
December 1 or 2: Flynn and Kushner meet with Ambassador Kislyak in Trump Tower where Kushner suggests using a backchannel through the Russian embassy.
December 5: Flynn and IP3’s McFarlane are photographed in the Trump Tower lobby together.
December 13th or 14th: Kushner meets with Sergei Gorkov, the head of Vnesheconombank (RDIF was spun-off from VEB), in Trump Tower.
There are differing explanations for this meeting, with Gorkov saying Kushner was representing his family’s company and Kushner saying the meeting was “unrelated to personal business” – of course the Mideast Marshall Plan involved both.
December 14/15th: Gorkov then flies to Japan where Vladimir Putin is on an official visit.
December 16: Flynn, Kushner, and Steve Bannon have a three hour meeting with MBZ in Trump Tower.
The meeting irked the Obama administration, as MbZ did not notify them of his trip to the US.
December 29: Flynn has five phone calls with Kislyak where they discuss sanctions. This conversation prompts Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to later express concerns about Flynn’s “underlying conduct.”
Early January: Flynn “talked favorably about the deal” with Tom Barrack, head of the inauguration.
January 11th: Seychelles meeting occurs.
The Intercept reports that “Alexander Mashkevich, a Kazakh businessman linkedto a shady Trump investment vehicle known as Bayrock, also arrived to meet with Zayed, who was ‘holding court’ at his mansion on the island, accordin to a source familiar with the meetings. Abdulrahman Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi billionaire whose grandfather founded the first Saudi private bank and whose father allegedly helped Al Qaeda, was also present.”
January 17-20th: At the Davos World Economic Forum, Anthony Scaramucci meets with Dmitriev. He also gives an interview to the Russian news outlet TASS, as a Trump advisor, disparaging sanctions and suggesting US and Russia have “common objectives.”
January 20th, 12:11pm: Flynn allegedly texts “good to go.”
Copson also reportedly says that “Mike has been putting everything in place for us” and that “This is going to make a lot of very wealthy people.”
He also allegedly says that Flynn planned to “ripped up” sanctions upon entering office.

https://themoscowproject.org/explainers/seychelles-uae-george-nader-michael-flynn-middle-east-marshall-plan/