The latest revelations about Roger Stone’s communications with Jerome Corsi create a direct line between Russian intel operations and Donald Trump.
We have known that Russia helped Trump’s effort for the presidency. We have known that members of the administration, George Papadopoulos and Donald Trump Jr. were the first to be exposed in the press. Now we know that Trump’s campaign strategists were successful in their attempts to reach out to Russian intel operations.
Stone officially joined the Trump campaign early on. He continued to stay in close contact with Trump and do ratfucking campaign activities for Trump throughout the campaign. He has admitted, for example, to talking with Trump by phone on August 3, 2016, one day after he received an email from Corsi about the upcoming Wikileaks operation.
Multiple Trump campaign officials may have been pursuing multiple lines of cooperation with the Russian government and pro-Russian entities. There is Stone. There is Carter Page, who was already under investigation by the FBI (FISA orders included) before he joined the Trump campaign, meeting in Russia. There’s Paul Manafort, offering to give private briefings on the Trump campaign to Russian oligarchs. There’s Jared Kuschner and Michael Flynn trying to set up a backchannel with the Russians. There’s Peter W. Smith, a Republican operate, who claimed to be working on behalf of Trump, trying to get hooked up with hackers on the dark web to find Clinton emails. There’s Erik Prince, brother of Education Secretary Betsy Devos, meeting with Russian investors in Seychelles before Trump’s inauguration. Sources claim that meeting was linked to Trump advisors’ attempts to covertly communicate with the Russians.
Trump is not throwing most of those advisors under the bus, not even the ones who have already been convicted. Even as Manafort claimed he was cooperating with Mueller, Trump was still in contact with Manafort and making “joint defense” agreements with others facing charges.
If Corsi and Manafort were committing their crimes on their own, without Trump’s knowledge and support, it seems awfully weird that Trump would be so concerned about defending them. Awfully weird that Trump would write a statement defending Trump Jr. over the Russia meeting he supposedly didn’t know about and then lie about having written the statement.
At this point, we can say not only could collusion have happened in some form, it probably did.
The Bear in the neighbourhood: Comments from experts on Russia policy
By B+D
On July 10, 2017
In Academics, Exclusive, Features, Foreign Policy, North America, Politics, Russia, Security, U.S. Politics
Is Russia an existential threat to the West? Is it just another geopolitical adversary? The answer to this question can determine Western action and Western goals. If we consider the Second World War definition of the West, which is limited to Western Europe and North America, policy prescription will be radically different than when one compares an ever expanding NATO and EU. This is important, and has been a major factor in punditry’s analysis of US President Donald Trump’s meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Hamburg G20, at a time of extreme global turmoil.
What we know so far is that there has been external interference in the US presidential election, by cyber attacks, originating from Russian mainland. That’s the US joint Intel assessment. Although the assessment claims that the cyber attack was ordered by Vladimir Putin, no public evidence was forwarded to corroborate that claim, and it is all classified. Nor is there any evidence of any active collusion between Russian intelligence and Trump campaign, yet, nor any clear indication of whether Russian interference decisively tilted the vote count.
Reporting continues to attempt to flesh out details, as investigations continue. Last week the Wall Street Journal reported last week that a Republican operative, Peter Smith, who claimed to have had communications with former Trump official advisor Michael Flynn, was actively seeking Clinton emails from hackers. Matt Tait, a cybersecurity professional who was a source for the Journal‘s reporting, wrote that he was contacted by Smith, who represented himself as working with the Trump campaign, to verify emails he said he had received on the dark web.
Whatever else turns out, Russia is still a geopolitical adversary of the United States and Europe. It is imperative for countries to have a clear coherent grand strategy and one based on a clear understanding of the issues. In light of that, we asked three International Relations experts, two from US, one from UK, on how should the West deal with Russia.
Here’s what they said.
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