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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow the 'Bad Boys of Brexit' forged ties with Russia and the Trump campaign
June 28 at 7:14 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-bad-boys-of-brexit-forged-ties-with-russia-and-the-trump-campaign--and-came-under-investigators-scrutiny/2018/06/28/6e3a5e9c-7656-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html
How the Bad Boys of Brexit forged ties with Russia and the Trump campaign and came under investigtion
BRISTOL, England On Aug. 19, 2016, Arron Banks, a wealthy British businessman, sat down at the palatial residence of the Russian ambassador to London for a lunch of wild halibut and Belevskaya pastila apple sweets accompanied by Russian white wine.
Banks had just scored a huge win. From relative obscurity, he had become the largest political donor in British history by pouring millions into Brexit, the campaign to disentangle the United Kingdom from the European Union that had earned a jaw-dropping victory at the polls two months earlier.
Now he had something else that bolstered his standing as he sat down with his new Russian friend, Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko: his teams deepening ties to Donald Trumps insurgent presidential bid in the United States. A major Brexit supporter, Stephen K. Bannon, had just been installed as chief executive of Trumps campaign. And Banks and his fellow Brexiteers had been invited to attend a fundraiser with Trump in Mississippi.
Less than a week after the meeting with the Russian envoy, Banks and firebrand Brexit politician Nigel Farage by then a cult hero among some anti-establishment Trump supporters were huddling privately with the Republican nominee in Jackson, Miss., where Farage wowed a foot-stomping crowd at a Trump rally.
Bankss journey from a lavish meal with a Russian diplomat in London to the raucous heart of Trump country was part of an unusual intercontinental charm offensive by the wealthy British donor and his associates, a hard-partying lot who dubbed themselves the Bad Boys of Brexit. Their efforts to simultaneously cultivate ties to Russian officials and Trumps campaign have captured the interest of investigators in the United Kingdom and the United States, including special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
Both inquiries center on questions of Russias involvement in seismic political events that have shaken the world order, with the European Union losing a key member and U.S. voters electing a president critical of Washingtons traditional alliances.
Banks had just scored a huge win. From relative obscurity, he had become the largest political donor in British history by pouring millions into Brexit, the campaign to disentangle the United Kingdom from the European Union that had earned a jaw-dropping victory at the polls two months earlier.
Now he had something else that bolstered his standing as he sat down with his new Russian friend, Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko: his teams deepening ties to Donald Trumps insurgent presidential bid in the United States. A major Brexit supporter, Stephen K. Bannon, had just been installed as chief executive of Trumps campaign. And Banks and his fellow Brexiteers had been invited to attend a fundraiser with Trump in Mississippi.
Less than a week after the meeting with the Russian envoy, Banks and firebrand Brexit politician Nigel Farage by then a cult hero among some anti-establishment Trump supporters were huddling privately with the Republican nominee in Jackson, Miss., where Farage wowed a foot-stomping crowd at a Trump rally.
Bankss journey from a lavish meal with a Russian diplomat in London to the raucous heart of Trump country was part of an unusual intercontinental charm offensive by the wealthy British donor and his associates, a hard-partying lot who dubbed themselves the Bad Boys of Brexit. Their efforts to simultaneously cultivate ties to Russian officials and Trumps campaign have captured the interest of investigators in the United Kingdom and the United States, including special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
Both inquiries center on questions of Russias involvement in seismic political events that have shaken the world order, with the European Union losing a key member and U.S. voters electing a president critical of Washingtons traditional alliances.
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How the 'Bad Boys of Brexit' forged ties with Russia and the Trump campaign (Original Post)
CousinIT
Jun 2018
OP
triron
(22,007 posts)1. Mueller is on it.