Donald J. Trump and the Deep State, Part 2

The post Donald J. Trump and the Deep State, Part 2 appeared first on WhoWhatWhy.

•  Peter Dale Scott, is a former Canadian diplomat, Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, co-founder of the Peace and Conflict Studies program at Berkeley, poet, and 2002 recipient of the Lannan Poetry Award.

•  His political books include Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1993), The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (2007), The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11 and the Deep Politics of War (2008), American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan  (2010), The American Deep State: Wall Street, Big Oil, and the Attack on U.S. Democracy (2014) and  Dallas ’63: The First Deep State Revolt Against the White House (2015).  A complete bibliography can be found on his website at http://www.peterdalescott.net.

•  The following is Part 2 of a two-part series, excerpted from The American Deep State: Big Money, Big Oil, and the Struggle for U.S. Democracy, Updated Edition (copyright 2017) (paperback); by Peter Dale Scott with permission of the publisher, Rowman & Littlefield. All rights reserved. Please go here to see Part 1.

***

Trump and the International Deep State

.

The first charge against Trump was the CIA-backed claim that Russian intelligence agencies hacked organizations affiliated both with Hillary Clinton and with the Democratic Party, and that the hacks were apparently “designed to benefit Donald Trump’s presidential aspirations in one fashion or another.”[52] (Politico also reported that “Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office.”)[53]

A second charge against Trump, closely related, was that as major banks in America stopped lending him money following his many bankruptcies, the Trump organization was forced to seek financing from non-traditional institutions. Several had direct ties to Russian financial interests in ways that have raised eyebrows. What’s more, several of Trump’s senior advisors have business ties to Russia or its satellite politicians.[54]

In May 2016 the Washington Post and Buzzfeed charged specifically that

Trump’s top adviser, Paul Manafort, has spent much of his recent career working for pro-Russian forces in Ukraine, and doing complex deals for an oligarch with close ties to Putin.…  Manafort … has, according to court documents, managed tens of millions of dollars for Oleg Deripaska, an oligarch denied entry to the U.S. reportedly for ties to organized crime, but so close to Vladimir Putin that top Russian officials fought (unsuccessfully) to get him a visa.[55]

On the eve of the new Trump presidency The New York Times reported that

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort… and Roger Stone.[56]

In January 2017 Buzzfeed leaked the source of these charges: a private intelligence report transmitted by the CIA to Trump.[57] This report, by former British intelligence Christopher Steele, did not as released mention Deripaska at all, but contained instead an unexplained discussion of Deripaska’s bankers, the Alfa Group, along with its founders Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven. 

References  

[52] “Donald Trump’s Many, Many, Many, Many Ties to Russia.” Time, August 16, 2016, http://time.com/4433880/donald-trump-ties-to-russia/

[53] Kenneth P. Vogel and David Stern, “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire….Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton,” Politico, January 11, 2017, http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446: “A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation. The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia.”

[54] Ibid.  

[55] “Trump Adviser’s Ties Raise Security Questions,” BuzzfeedNews, May 6, 2016, https://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/manafort-russia?utm_term=.htL7NyLEDb#.elgKkM63xN, linking to “Inside Trump adviser Manafort’s world of politics and global financial dealmaking” (Washington Post, April 26, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-business-as-in-politics-trump-adviser-no-stranger-to-controversial-figures/2016/04/26/970db232-08c7-11e6-b283-e79d81c63c1b_story.html?utm_term=.db8349a4a754). These charges should not be confused with the more sensational Buzzfeed leak in January 2017 of a private intelligence report shown by the CIA to Trump (https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia?utm_term=.ppJ6nP7KJA#.hrE3zm5pPx). This report, by former British intelligence Christopher Steele, did not as released mention Deripaska, but contained instead an unexplained discussion of the Alfa Group, whose connections to Halliburton when run by Dick Cheney are discussed by me in American War Machine, 187.

[56] “Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry Into Trump Associates,” New York Times, January 19, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/us/politics/trump-russia-associates-investigation.html. For a critique of Manafort’s and Stone’s responses to the charges, see Joseph Cannon at http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2017/01/busted-on-inauguration-day.html. In addition to the charge that Russian officials helped Trump, Politico has also claimed that “Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton” (Ukrainian Efforts to Sabotage Trump Backfire,” Politico, January 11,2017, http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446.

[57] https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia?utm_term=.ppJ6nP7KJA#.hrE3zm5pPx.

---

Read more http://whowhatwhy.org/2017/02/07/donald-j-trump-deep-state-part-2/