A prolific Vladimir Putin admirer who once mused “[W]ill [Putin] become my new best friend?,” Donald Trump is tomorrow set to receive his first classified briefing from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
What every American should be even more concerned about is that Trump will be receiving secret intelligence straight from the DNI’s office, then likely sharing its contents with a Russia-connected (and invested!) foreign policy adviser and — even more alarming — a chief adviser who reportedly may have received millions in off-the-books cash from a pro-Putin political party in Ukraine.
Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s chief campaign adviser, did work for Ukraine’s pro-Putin political party and had an office in Kiev as recently as May 2016, according to a recent New York Times report. The investigation also uncovered that Manafort may have received as much as “$12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments” from the pro-Russia political organization.
Manafort dismissed the report as “unfounded, silly and nonsensical,” but like so many others affiliated with the Trump campaign, including Trump himself, Manafort hasn’t shied away from lying to the media.
Trump Foreign Policy Adviser Carter Page’s Russian Investments And Ties
Another sketchy character with even more direct ties to Putin’s Russia is Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page. In July, Page visited Russia to push for a strengthened U.S.relationship with Russia — “[j]ust days before Republicans adopted a new, more Russia-friendly plank into their party platform.”
Previously, Page advised Gazprom, a mostly-state-owned Russian gas producer, counselling the company on investments and deals. As recently as March 2016, Page told Bloomberg that he remained an investor in the Russian company.
Ordinarily, it would be shocking to see an American presidential nominee pivoting to a bizarrely pro-Russia foreign policy doctrine. But Donald Trump is no ordinary candidate, nor are his Putin-connected aides typical campaign advisers. And so here we are, with Trump:
- Openly requesting that Russia conduct espionage on Hillary Clinton, and even going so far as to offer that the country might be rewarded for doing so;
- Heaping praise on Vladimir Putin;
- Alternately saying he did and didn’t meet with Putin, to the point where it’s unclear which is the lie;
- Lobbying to make the GOP platform more pro-Russia;
- Claiming that he has “ZERO investments in Russia,” even though his son once claimed, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets”; and,
- Pushing Kremlin talking points — including that Russia never invaded Ukraine, although, if they did, the “people of Crimea…would rather be with Russia” — which has earned him folk hero-status among the Russian media.
Published: Aug 16, 2016