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George Will raises possible Trump link to Russian oligarchs | TheHill
George Will, who we all know is no fan of Trump's is suggesting that the reason Trump seems to keep announcing policy positions endearing to the Russians is because he is financially connected to and indeed dependent on them. He suggests that one reason Trump won't release his tax returns is that they will show that Trump is indebted to the Russians, and Putin and his allies, in particular.
So let's examine this in a bit more detail, to see if there is any "there" there. And when you look into it, it is quite alarming and ominous.
Why George Will Might Be Right About Vladimir Putin's Hold Over Donald Trump (VIDEO) | RedState
Trump has screwed over US banks and other banks in the West. They won't deal with him. But he and the family are getting tons of money from Russia. And his campaign manager wants him to take a soft line on Russia in the Ukraine. And his campaign made ONE change to the platform -- back off of contesting Putin in the Ukraine.
This is not going away, folks.
George Will, who we all know is no fan of Trump's is suggesting that the reason Trump seems to keep announcing policy positions endearing to the Russians is because he is financially connected to and indeed dependent on them. He suggests that one reason Trump won't release his tax returns is that they will show that Trump is indebted to the Russians, and Putin and his allies, in particular.
The Friday release by WikiLeaks of those emails, which appear to show an effort by DNC officials to lead a campaign against Clinton's primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), led to the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who will step down after the convention.
"Both the campaign chair and anybody you talk to, including Sen. [Chris] Murphy [D-Conn.] would not go down that road once pressed on the connection between Russia and the Trump campaign," said Baier. "But they have thrown it out there. George?"
"Well, it's the sort of thing we might learn if we saw the candidate's tax returns," Will responded. "Perhaps one more reason why we're not seeing his tax returns because he is deeply involved in dealing with Russian oligarchs and others. Whether that's good, bad or indifferent, it's probably the reasonable surmise."
So let's examine this in a bit more detail, to see if there is any "there" there. And when you look into it, it is quite alarming and ominous.
Why George Will Might Be Right About Vladimir Putin's Hold Over Donald Trump (VIDEO) | RedState
...At a minimum, Trump appears to have a deep financial dependence on Russian money from persons close to Putin. And this is matched to a conspicuous solicitousness to Russian foreign policy interests where they come into conflict with US policies which go back decades through administrations of both parties. There is also something between a non-trivial and a substantial amount of evidence suggesting Putin-backed financial support for Trump or a non-tacit alliance between the two men.
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2. Post-bankruptcy Trump has been highly reliant on money from Russia, most of which has over the years become increasingly concentrated among oligarchs and sub-garchs close to Vladimir Putin. Here's a good overview from The Washington Post, with one morsel for illustration ...
Since the 1980s, Trump and his family members have made numerous trips to Moscow in search of business opportunities, and they have relied on Russian investors to buy their properties around the world.Read both articles: After his bankruptcy and business failures roughly a decade ago Trump has had an increasingly difficult time finding sources of capital for new investments. As I noted above, Trump has been blackballed by all major US banks with the exception of Deutschebank, which is of course a foreign bank with a major US presence. He has steadied and rebuilt his financial empire with a heavy reliance on capital from Russia. At a minimum the Trump organization is receiving lots of investment capital from people close to Vladimir Putin. Trump's tax returns would likely clarify the depth of his connections to and dependence on Russian capital aligned with Putin. And in case you're keeping score at home: no, that's not reassuring.
Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets, Trumps son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.
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4. Then there's Paul Manafort, Trump's nominal 'campaign chair' who now functions as campaign manager and top advisor. Manafort spent most of the last decade as top campaign and communications advisor for Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian Ukrainian Prime Minister and then President whose ouster in 2014 led to the on-going crisis and proxy war in Ukraine. Yanukovych was and remains a close Putin ally. Manafort is running Trump's campaign.
5. Trump's foreign policy advisor on Russia and Europe is Carter Page, a man whose entire professional career has revolved around investments in Russia and who has deep and continuing financial and employment ties to Gazprom. If you're not familiar with Gazprom, imagine if most or all of the US energy industry were rolled up into a single company and it were personally controlled by the US President who used it as a source of revenue and patronage. That is Gazprom's role in the Russian political and economic system. It is no exaggeration to say that you cannot be involved with Gazprom at the very high level which Page has been without being wholly in alignment with Putin's policies. Those ties also allow Putin to put Page out of business at any time.
6. Over the course of the last year, Putin has aligned all Russian state controlled media behind Trump.
Let's pause for a moment here. In paragraph 6, Marshall refers to a Frank Foer (our motto: nothing to fear but Foer himself) article which is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy on steroids and PCP. Still, it bears reading though with the utmost skepticism.
7. Here's where it gets more interesting. This is one of a handful of developments that tipped me from seeing all this as just a part of Trump's larger shadiness to something more specific and ominous about the relationship between Putin and Trump. ... The Trump Camp was totally indifferent to the platform. So party activists were able to write one of the most conservative platforms in history. Not with Trump's backing but because he simply didn't care. With one big exception: Trump's team mobilized the nominee's traditional mix of cajoling and strong-arming on one point: changing the party platform on assistance to Ukraine against Russian military operations in eastern Ukraine. (editor's note: see my post on this for more details) For what it's worth (and it's not worth much) I am quite skeptical of most Republicans call for aggressively arming Ukraine to resist Russian aggression. But the single-mindedness of this focus on this one issue - in the context of total indifference to everything else in the platform - speaks volumes.
Trump has screwed over US banks and other banks in the West. They won't deal with him. But he and the family are getting tons of money from Russia. And his campaign manager wants him to take a soft line on Russia in the Ukraine. And his campaign made ONE change to the platform -- back off of contesting Putin in the Ukraine.
This is not going away, folks.