Seth Abramson: "just released Navalny tapes gets us closer to seeing

[triron]

the whole of the Trump-Russia coordination effort"

Link to tweet

Details:

"

1/ The Trump-Russia coordination narrative becomes much less confusing—particularly after today (more on that in a moment)—if you just (a) know all the key players in the narrative, and (b) understand the relatively limited role that nearly all of them except four or five played.
6:24 PM - 8 Feb 20

2/ Here are the names to know: Trump, Trump Jr., Kushner, Manafort, Gates, Sessions, Page, Papadopoulos, Clovis, Lewandowski, Hicks, Flynn, Prince, Cohen, Sater, Phares, Gordon, and Bannon. That's 18 names—but most played a relatively small role in the narrative. I'll show you.

3/ J.D. Gordon made some trips to Hungary—the HQ of Russian intelligence in Europe—that people find suspicious, and may have been present for some Sessions-Kislyak meetings, but mostly his role was being ordered by Trump to change the RNC platform to benefit Putin and doing it.

4/ Corey Lewandowski was, by his own admission, "functionally not in control" of the Trump campaign beginning April 7, though he was nominally campaign manager until May 19. His role was doing nothing to stop—and possibly encouraging—key Trump-Russia (Page/Papadopoulos) contacts.
9 replies 166 retweets 605 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago

5/ Sam Clovis, National Co-Chair of Trump's campaign, didn't—much like Lewandowski and Gordon—have consequential Russia meetings. But he hired Page and Papadopous and, like Lewandowski, did nothing to stop (and rather more to encourage) Trump-Russia (Page/Papadopolous) contacts.
7 replies 158 retweets 560 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
2h2 hours ago

6/ You may be noticing a pattern so far: major figures in the Trump-Russia coordination narrative whose primary role was to do one of three things: (1) bring more important players into the campaign; (2) follow the orders of more important players; or (3) encourage others to act.
2h2 hours ago

7/ As far as we know, Rick Gates' role was primarily to plot with Manafort—as his deputy—and oversee key Trump-Russia operations like the RNC platform shift. It's not clear he had any major Russia meetings, though like Manafort he may have stood to gain financially from contacts.
2h2 hours ago

8/ Bannon's utility to Mueller is he kept his eyes open and his hands fairly clean as he watched others do worse than anything he did.

Was he in touch with Cambridge Analytica over coordinating Trump's data analytics with the Russian propaganda/psyops machine? Maybe, maybe not.

9/ I'm going somewhere with all this.

What I'm doing is clearing away the men whose primary utility to Special Counsel Mueller will be reporting on what others did, rather than on what they did themselves. You'll find the latter group is very, very small indeed. And it matters.


10/ Hope Hicks is who you emailed if you wanted to get a message to Trump—so she saw and heard everything. She also participated in events initiated by others above her in the chain of command, like assisting Trump in fashioning a false statement for Don. She wasn't an initiator.
15 replies 198 retweets 611 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

11/ Walid Phares seems to only be relevant at two points: he participates in the RNC platform-shift effort orchestrated by others and is encouraged by Clovis to travel to Moscow with Papadopoulos (a key player) in the late summer of 2016. So he saw a little and initiated nothing.
8 replies 142 retweets 493 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

12/ Felix Sater is *enormously* relevant as the main Trump-Russia liaison from 2002 to 2015—he saves Trump from bankruptcy by creating a money pipeline between the businessman and Russian oligarchs—but his involvement during the campaign focuses on two major stunts I'll mention.
14 replies 209 retweets 572 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

13/ First, Sater tries to help Trump profit off his presidential run by brokering a Trump Tower Moscow deal with Russian investors in late 2015. During the transition, he tries to be himself useful by ferrying a sanctions plan from a Putin pal to Trump—via Trump's attorney Cohen.
9 replies 173 retweets 542 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

14/ But neither stunt is successful, and the former is focused on helping Trump enrich himself (and because the plan doesn't work, it can't *really* explain Trump-Russia coordination during the campaign). The 2017 stunt is mainly useful in helping us see sanctions as a big focus.
3 replies 136 retweets 493 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

15/ At this point we're down to Trump, Don Jr., Kushner, Manafort, Sessions, Page, Papadopoulos, Flynn, Prince, Cohen—10 men. Keep in mind that while a successful criminal conspiracy may be a scheme many are aware of, the number of people carrying out the operation must be small.
16 replies 162 retweets 526 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

16/ Jeff Sessions wasn't as useful as a key operator because of his high profile—but what he *could* do was use his position as a Senator and head of Trump's NatSec team to surreptitiously negotiate sanctions with the Russians on three occasions and then lie about it to Congress.
7 replies 204 retweets 591 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

17/ Here's where we *begin* to approach today's news: the Navalny Tape, fundamentally a story about Manafort and Papadopoulos—one already indicted, one already convicted. During the campaign, Manafort made clear only a "low-level" Trump aide could make direct contact with Russia.
3 replies 162 retweets 505 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

18/ That's why Sessions only met with Russia's ambassador—he had the right cover for such a meet, as a Senator, but wasn't low-profile enough to be in on meetings beyond that. Still, as the Trump-Russia conspiracy was a sanctions-for-aid deal, he *could* work the sanctions angle.
7 replies 130 retweets 458 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

19/ To recap where we're at: the Trump-Russia coordination conspiracy was a straight-up sanctions relief-for-specified/unspecified Russian assistance deal. Russia was able to make contact with Sessions as needed to see where Trump was at—at various points—on the sanctions piece.
8 replies 156 retweets 509 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

20/ The key thing to understand about Erik Prince and Michael Flynn is that, like Jeff Sessions, they were major players—but with far, far fewer scruples because they had no Senate position to lose. Trump made them operators by keeping them from the limelight during the campaign.
15 replies 155 retweets 493 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

21/ Prince was a shadow NatSec advisor during and after the campaign; he was never acknowledged as such. Flynn was left off Trump's first three NatSec teams, despite being Trump's lead NatSec advisor. He only came out of the shadows after Jared made it possible in the transition.
4 replies 118 retweets 416 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

22/ Frankly we don't *know* what the hell Prince was doing behind closed doors—though we do know that once Trump is elected he becomes comfortable enough letting Prince out of his box that he sends him to the Seychelles to negotiate with Russia (in the form of the RDIF) directly.
6 replies 133 retweets 431 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

23/ For our purposes, Prince is relevant for two reasons: (1) how assiduously Trump kept him hidden, and (2) how quickly post-election he activated him as a negotiator with Russia. The interesting thing is, Michael Flynn is critical for the exact same reason and in the same ways.
5 replies 132 retweets 423 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

24/ Flynn, like Prince, was, it seems, too powerful/self-interested to be willing to take a risk and meet with the Russians during the campaign—it only became safe for a major player like him to do so post-campaign. So Trump had Flynn negotiate with Russia during the transition.
4 replies 109 retweets 378 likes
Seth Abramson
‏Verified account @SethAbramson
1h1 hour ago

25/ The exception to this came early in the campaign—when it wasn't yet clear Trump would be a major player in the primary. Flynn advised Trump throughout late 2015 and may well have reported back to Trump—or taken orders from Trump—regarding his December 2015 dinner with Putin.

26/ Don is an interesting case because (a) he's obviously a moron, but (b) his father trusts him. The result was (a) attempts to actually make contacts with Russia (because his dad trusted him for something that sensitive), and (b) those attempts failing (because Don is a moron).

27/ Don had contacts with WikiLeaks, but they may have had no more effect than Don passing on to his dad that WikiLeaks was going to be helpful to him—and Trump in response inserting *praise* of WikiLeaks into every one of his stump speeches for the last 45 days of the campaign.

28/ Just so, I think that everyone on Mueller's team believes Don told his father about his June 9, 2016 meeting with Kremlin agents at Trump Tower before and after it happened. It was a ham-fisted attempt to use the Agalarovs—Trump family friends—to get dirt on Hillary Clinton.

29/ The reason I call this end of things moronic and—in a sense—beside the point is that, again, the Trump-Russia coordination conspiracy was a sanctions relief-for-specified/unspecified Russian aid deal. For it to work, Russia just needed a) sanctions relief, b) to do its thing.

30/ While of *course* the Trumps *wanted* direct assistance from Russia in the form of opposition research—to put a finer point on it, stolen digital property—on Clinton, by mid-June, days after the Trump Tower meeting, it was clear that the Trumps would get *other* in-kind aid.

31/ This is what's *really* important about the Trump Tower meeting: going into it, the Trumps thought Russian aid would come in the form of valuable—stolen—Clinton property. Within a week, the Kremlin clarified: no, we just want
sanctions relief, and we'll take care of the rest."

More here: https://twitter.com/SethAbramson

[asiliveandbreathe]

1. Talk about being left speechless..so many questions..in hindsight - the look

on Diane Feinsteins face when she came out of one of the first meetings, sessions recusal, to save his own ass, all the lies, the POS not putting the recent legislated sanction on Russia..Wall St. reacting??

Speechless, I am...

[PatSeg]

12. Oh yes

I'd forgotten that look, quite unlike anything I've seen from a senator. Chilling.

[triron]

2. Navalny is an opposition figure to Putin

More here:

https://qz.com/1202800/alexey-navalny-says-oleg-deripaska-transmitted-trump-campaign-information-from-paul-manafort-to-the-kremlin/

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. I'm honestly surprised he hasn't avoided accidentially falling out of a fourth story window...

...trying to move a Jacuzzi into his window.

[triron]

9. funny but a little frightening

[Cha]

3. Kick for Seth..

Thanks triron

[NewJeffCT]

4. Thanks for posting the actual tweets

being at work, it's sometimes hard to view them.

Good summarization from Seth - he has a good ability to get real facts and organize them in a logical way.

[triron]

10. Much more on this today

[asiliveandbreathe]

13. I can't wait//triron..eom

[Poiuyt]

5. Great research!

If even half of this is true, they should all be in jail.

[Pachamama]

6. Good Summary - this is just the tip of the Iceberg....but it begins to connect the dots and lay out

....the relevance and role of each of the players.

The only thing I disagree on with Seth is that I think it goes much deeper than the examples he provides and I believe there are things we don't know about that involve money laundering and blackmail that when its revealed will help everything fall in place and shock everyone....

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. We know now that Trump, his kids, have a long money laundering history.

and it is still going on with Eric being involved, mostly out of the country.


Funny Seth did not mention Gorka. That rotund nazi leaning guy from...Hungary. Now we know why Hungary.

[triron]

11. Got to agree with you.

Perhaps he is being 'conservative'

[asiliveandbreathe]

14. Seth being very careful..gee, I wonder why..eom