General Flynn was in charge of setting up meeting in the Seychelles.

[kentuck]

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/05/18/flynns-job-was-to-set-up-back-channel-access-between-putin-and-trump/

(from an older article)

<snip>
Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the exchanges told Reuters…

Six of the previously undisclosed contacts described to Reuters were phone calls between Sergei Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, and Trump advisers, including Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, three current and former officials said.

Conversations between Flynn and Kislyak accelerated after the Nov. 8 vote as the two discussed establishing a back channel for communication between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy, which both sides considered hostile to improved relations, four current U.S. officials said.

The conversations between Flynn and Kislyak were therefore about more than lifting the sanctions on Russia. They were about setting up a back channel of communication between Trump and Putin “that could bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy.”

... ...

[NurseJackie]

1. Wow. I think Mueller knows almost everything already...

... and any questioning he does now is just to find out who's a liar.

[kentuck]

3. He probably got a lot of info from General Flynn?

Eric Prince does not come out looking good.

[nycbos]

5. Agreed

Flynn probably gave Mueller this as part of his plea agreement.

[kentuck]

6. This may explain the "Why" that everyone wonders about?

A few oligarchs and criminals were going to make a lot of money off this deal. They had to keep it secret. No way the Congress would approve such a disastrous idea.

[nycbos]

8. Probably.

[Hortensis]

26. There's another "why" also. For years Russia's been exporting

its own corruption to many other nations as a weapon to destroy them from within.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S. many very wealthy and powerful interests have been attempting to institutionalize corruption that turns our government to serving them, instead of the people. Under their control, Republicans in congress are at work at that right now, banking this time.

Common interests and common means for achieving them.

And often the common interests are literally common money. Both Russia and Exxon have many billions in investments in potential oil profits locked up by international sanctions, including ours.

A few months ago a State Department executive warned of a dangerous dismantling from within of our ability to influence events around the planet and pointed a strong, unstated finger at treason as there was no other possible reason to explain what was happening under Trump and Tillerson. And now there's reason to believe Tillerson many have been Putin's choice.

Enemies foreign and domestic.

[byronius]

31. Succinct and coherent.

Well-summarized.

[ewagner]

37. Agree...

One of the most coherent summaries I've seen...

[Sophia4]

59. One word: oil.

It no longer makes sense to have an economy so dependent on oil.

But a lot of very wealthy, very influential people and countries stand to lose a lot of money as we turn to other, less expensive, cleaner forms of energy.

I have thought or suspected from the beginning that is what this is about.

With the right investments, here in Southern California, we could become virtually oil-free. It would take time and lots of money, but we could do it.

[bettyellen]

65. Yep, I remember Exxon doing side deals in Africa that undermined US diplomatic efforts to keep the

profits away from a few oligarchs to benefit the welfare or the country instead. Exxon is fighting America everywhere it can.

[tblue37]

52. THIS (GOP) congress wouldn't be bothered by it. In fact, the Republicans in congress

would be looking for their cut.

[Golden Raisin]

30. Prince NEVER comes out looking good.

Pure evil. His sister too and the rest of that Family.

[malaise]

2. Lock them all up

Off to the greatest page

[kentuck]

4. As I recall...

Flynn also informed them that the meeting in the Seychelles was about private cooperation in building nuclear plants across the Middle East. That definitely sounds like a deep Russian plot.

[malaise]

15. You are correct

[PearliePoo2]

7. Sing Flynn...SING!

Mr. Mueller, Sir? Nail all these treasonous bastards!

[Eyeball_Kid]

9. Wonkette writes that the Mueller probe is MUCH bigger than the Trumpy-Russia affair.

What Mueller will likely expose is an international network of oligarchs consisting of international mob bosses and other billionaires with the purpose of harnessing the world's economic grid of the flow of capital. Trumpy's "coup", coordinated by Putin, is a relatively small piece of the entire enterprise.

[OMGWTF]

32. Will Vlad The Poisoner Deal with Trump Like He does Everyone Else who "Disappoints" Him?

[SharonAnn]

63. I certainly hope that it's a really BIG net that he's casting.

[Botany]

10. Hello

This puts Erik Prince right smack in the middle of the coup. BTW Erik also brings in his
buddy Rudy Giuliani too.

[kentuck]

11. It's a grand conspiracy.

I have no doubt.

[Botany]

17. Or it was random chance that Erik Prince, a Putin employee, and that middle man* from the U.A.E. ...

... all just happened to meet up in the Seychelles Islands 900 miles off the coast of Africa.



* George Nader

https://wonkette.com/630900/robert-muellers-new-cooperating-witness-might-just-blow-trumps-russian-conspiracy-wide-open

Robert Mueller’s New Cooperating Witness Might Just Blow Trump’s Russian Conspiracy WIDE OPEN
Read more at https://wonkette.com/630900/robert-muellers-new-cooperating-witness-might-just-blow-trumps-russian-conspiracy-wide-open#GhIU7S7kGFsCS9fU.99

[kentuck]

18. And like long, lost buddies....

..sat down and had a beer together.

Just a coincidence, I am sure.

[Botany]

20. My neighbors went to the Seychelles Islands last year and they said it was ....

..... a two day trip.

Columbus to NYC
NYC to London
London to Africa
Africa to the Seychelles Islands

BTW they said it was very pretty .... they had family there.

[kentuck]

22. That's interesting!

It's not a place you hear about every day.

[nocoincidences]

53. I was watching Ari Melber last night and my ears perked up

when he said Seychelles, but I swear he pronounced it so weirdly that I wasn't sure I really heard what he said.

I thought he said: Sek-hell-ees. Was I hallucinating? Did anybody else catch that?

I was really caught off guard because I respect him as a very intelligent man who I would expect to get a pronunciation like that correct. It threw me so much I went to Google to check if I was pronouncing it correctly.

[dixiegrrrrl]

68. We need Bingo cards, with names instead of numbers.

BIG cards.

already Mueller has uncovered massive money laundering, in several states, via the russian mob & Trump, massive money laundering via Trump projects in quite a number of countries ( I still want the Baku/Ivanka connection to be charged)
a whole lot of various financial crimes around Ukraine, Hungary ( remember teh Gorka and other connections.

Plus dirty money, treason, by the GOP and some members of Congress. Plus the election swindling, and RICO.

And he is closing in on the oligarchs ( I call them OIL-garchs) of these countries.

The porn/sex industry is also in there somewhere.

[Botany]

69. And what did the US Government do to the Rosenbergs who sold out America to the Soviet Union?

Trump has been associated with the mob and Russian thugs his whole life.

BTW the electronic voting machines have "back doors" programed into them
that allows for vote tampering. Those back doors were not done by mistake.

[zaj]

12. Stop calling it the very innocuous "setting up a back channel"

It's "setting up an illegal conspiracy to overthrow democracy"

[FakeNoose]

36. Yep, that's exactly what this is

Holy shit!

[Cosmocat]

40. T R E A S O N

JHC, had BHO had a shot of vodka during his campaign the assholes would be screaming TREASON.

This IS what this is ...

[H2O Man]

13. Recommended!!!

You may remember that we've discussed this "meeting" about a year ago, when it first leaked out but was largely ignored by the media (because there was so much other important stuff being reported). I posted about it twice, if I remember correctly. The implications are huge.

I noted then that this was similar to an important part of the Iran-Contra scandal, where the NSC overstepped its authority, ignored the State Department, etc, and began dealing directly with non-nation-state international weapons dealers. In the current case, that is Eric Prince's business.

There is a fuck of a lot more to this story than lifting the sanctions. And Mr. Mueller knows this, and is focusing on it.

[kentuck]

16. I think this may be the genesis of the entire "Russia scandal".

This sounds like a Putin plan long in the making.

Kushner also, attempted to get a secret communication line to Russia early in the Administration.

This is a complex network of a very deep conspiracy against the United States of America.

This investigation is exposing the depth of the operations of an international criminal cabal that is run out of Russia thru Donald Trump and his organization, in my opinion.

[H2O Man]

19. You've got it!

It's part of a long-term, on-going program, that is rooted in an alt-right interpretation of expected changes within the global community in the next decade. It involves "white nationalism," and their concerns with a wide range of interconnected issues. I've touched the surface of this before -- close to a year ago -- and was thinking of exploring it more in-depth soon. But you have already peeled back the outer level here. You've nailed it ....the nature of the beast! Keep going with it! Everything falls into place.

[kentuck]

21. If they had been successful in building nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East....

...it would have been the perfect place to launder their vast sums of money and to make profits off the rich Arabs at the same time. This may have been the cornerstone of the entire conspiracy?

[H2O Man]

23. Right.

And there is still the on-going effort to move on that in Saudi Arabia. It's closely related to the Russian investors wanting Iran to build such plants. It's all connected. And it's ugly as hell.

[kentuck]

24. The criminals are running the world!

It seems?

[H2O Man]

25. Yes.

Back in 2014, I believe it was, 52 of the largest "economic units" in the world were corporations, and 48 were nations. ("Units" is their term.) I am not sure the exact numbers today, but more are corporations. Thus, in a very literal sense, global power is no longer dominated by nation-states. And corporations are far, far less likely to follow national and international laws. More, corporations can and do hire "private contractors" (re: Eric Prince) to provide "para-military" protection of their assets. In other words, some corporations open money-laundering-mats.

You are on this! I love it. Keep going!

[kentuck]

28. Scary...

And think of the power that the oligarchs hold over the corporations. They have so much money that they don't know what to do with it. They need a conduit to launder their money. Putin found a guy that had set up hundreds and hundreds of LLCs throughout the world and was able to connect them and their money to real estate deals, golf courses, apartment buildings, mansions, etc. He was willing to do anything for the money. That guy was Donald Trump.

[H2O Man]

43. Putin looks for access.

Thus, if he was examining businessmen in the USA, he would consider: is that person willing to "bend" the law? How often? How far? Because the willingness to bend/break the law is the very definition of the access he seeks.

He identified Trump long ago as his easiest access. Thus, they groomed Trump, including investing in deals that were just too good to be true!

[OneGrassRoot]

39. Question about white nationalists and the Middle East

[ Hi, friend ]

I've been focused on the Dugin-Putin devotion to white ethno-states which underlies their geopolitical vision. That explains white nationalists' love of Putin.

But the relationship between the Kremlin and the Middle East confuses me, ideology wise -- I get what it's about when the bottom line is $$ and anti-US/Atlantic imperialism.

I just found this article explaining white nationalists' love of Assad (which I wasn't aware of):

There’s a simple explanation for how the American far-right became curiously infatuated with the Arab totalitarian leader: Their hearts were won over by the Assad family’s years-old propaganda campaign at home in Syria. Assad’s authoritarianism uses the same buzzwords as the far-right to describe the society he’s trying to build in his own country — a pure, monolithic society of devotees to his own power. American neo-Nazis see Assad as a hero.

As the chaos of Charlottesville and its aftermath was unfolding, Assad addressed a group of diplomats in Damascus about the ongoing war in Syria. “We lost many of our youth and infrastructure,” he said, “but we gained a healthier and more homogenous society.”

Again, I get the corporate-political machinations that involve exploitation and greed, which explains why the ME leaders go along with such alliances, too, but I'm thrown about the white nationalist ideology which at least in part motivates the Kremlin.

Is there something I'm missing about the white supremacists and the Middle East and Islam?

When it comes to leaders like Putin, does greed and power outweigh the vision of white ethno-states?

Or do most white supremacists, in positions of power or not, not necessarily want to destroy non-white countries but instead simply want homogeneity -- segretation, no multiculturalism -- and thus authoritarian regimes anywhere who promote the same, homogeneity over diversity, are thus aligned?

[H2O Man]

45. Oh, I love it!

This is exactly why I love DU!

You've hit another bull's eye. I recommend that you go back even further, in your research. Look at when Henry Kissinger was "negotiating in good faith" with both Syria and Egypt, per US policy. He offered a deal with Assad, who believed at the time it would include Egypt, making for an increase in pan-Middle East strength internationally. At the same time, Henry was secretly negotiating a distinct deal with Egypt. When that was reached, Kissinger snubbed Assad, very publicly. The reason was this: he did not want unity in the Middle East. US policy has long forced wedges between the different populations there.

Skipping over a lot, Putin backs Assad, but is also intent upon preventing unity in the wider Middle East. Now, take it a step or two further. "Energy" is the currency of power today. And it is a limited resource, in the context of fossil fuel. Conflicts lead to migration. More, much of the history of human migrations involve changes in climate. Climate change will soon cause significant rises in sea levels. Thus, even within countries such as the US, the populations in coastal regions -- where populations are the most dense -- will be forced to re-locate. And the effects of a thaw of the tundra regions of Russia is definitely worth looking into. (Hint, hint.)

This is why Putin sought an alt-right candidate in the US.

[H2O Man]

46. I hope that

this makes sense. I apologize for being scattered. It is a topic that really requires more information than one can include in a post or OP on DU. Kind of like the Plame scandal .....

[OneGrassRoot]

51. Very interesting...

thank you for more rabbit holes to explore!

[H2O Man]

56. It's my duty

to identify select rabbit holes for my Best Friends!!!!

[ewagner]

38. I remember that too Kentuck

What truly interests me is that Trump et al are hell-bent on building that channel because they have at least two attempts to do so that have been exposed.

Is there another? Were they successful in another way?

[kentuck]

66. They were partners in crime.

They had no choice but to collude.

[magicarpet]

14. Fascist Treasonous turncoats...

.... toss America in the toilet and flush twice. Their only concern was the gluttony of and single focus of endless self enrichments.

[poboy2]

35. TREASONOUS COUP -nt

[Cosmocat]

41. THIS

Not sure why people won't call it what it is ...

[SunSeeker]

27. Wow.

[bucolic_frolic]

29. Flynn sewed Seychelles by the seashore

I bet some clams were exchanged too

[ffr]

33. So Flynn was coordinating with Sergei Kislyak before the election, then after Sergei Kislyak...

Link to tweet

Traitor! The witness has rights. Haul him away, now!

[poboy2]

34. If true, Mueller KNOWS ALL, lmao. -nt

[KPN]

42. Connecting the dots! Mueller's way deeper into

this way deeper intrigue than I think any of us could have imagined.

Great sleuthing kentuck!

[yallerdawg]

44. We repeatedly see that the R's will do ANYTHING to get what they want.

What could we possibly imagine that would be too out of the realm of possibility?

This meeting in the Seychelles?

[Initech]

47. Flynn, Rohrabacher and Prince are all traitors. Lock them up!

[H2O Man]

48. This OP is

among the most important that I've ever read on DU.

[kentuck]

49. Elise Jordan made a comment on Nicolle's Show...

...that the Trump sons were supposed to go on the trip to Seychelles, but that they could not get Secret Service protection or something? So they did not go.

I tried to find (Google) any information about that and could not find anything?

Where did Elise hear that story, I wonder?

[wishstar]

50. The NY Times article on this mentions Anthony Scaramucci meeting with Dmitriev after Seychelles

If anyone remembers, 3 CNN reporters were fired after a story they wrote was retracted involving Scaramucci's involvement with a Russia investment fund after Scaramucci protested that he had done nothing wrong. However this new NYTimes article mentions Scaramucci having contact with Dmitriev who was at the Seychelles meetings. So CNN article was probably right all along.

"Shortly after the Seychelles meeting, Mr. Dmitriev met with Anthony Scaramucci, then an informal Trump adviser, at the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In an interview afterward with TASS, a Russian news agency, Mr. Scaramucci criticized the Obama administration’s economic sanctions on Russia as ineffective and suggested that the Trump administration and Russia could find common ground on numerous issues.

“We have to make the world safer, we have to eliminate from the world the radical Islamic terrorism, and we have to figure out the ways to grow the wages for working class-families,” said Mr. Scaramucci, who later had a brief but calamitous stint as White House communications director. “Whether in Russia or in the U.S., I think there are a lot of common objectives.”

For his part, Mr. Dmitriev seemed particularly optimistic at the dawn of the Trump era. In an interview with The New York Times two days after the 2016 election, he said he was excited that Mr. Trump’s dramatic victory would “reshape the U.S.-Russia relationship.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/us/politics/george-nader-special-counsel-mueller-cooperating-seychelles.html

[duforsure]

54. The it could be Mueller time

for scaramucci.

[Tatiana]

55. Who is the mole that tipped off the WaPo?

Potentially relevant context for the Seychelles meeting is that there were several other meetings of the various factions involved the month before, mostly happening in Trump Tower.

On December 1, 2016, Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn met secretly in Trump Tower with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. Kislyak reported back to his bosses that at this meeting, Kushner said he wanted to set up a secret communications channel between the Trump team and Russia. (Kushner denies that this happened.)

Days later, the Washington Post received an anonymous letter revealing that this secret meeting happened and who was present (though they couldn’t confirm it for several more months). The letter also claimed that at the meeting, Kushner, Flynn, and Kislyak discussed setting up a meeting between a Trump representative and a Russian in some third country, and concluded Flynn was too high-profile to go.


On December 12, Kislyak returned to Trump Tower and met with Kushner’s deputy. Then on the following day, Sergey Gorkov, the head of the Russian government-owned bank VEB, stopped by to meet with Kushner. Again, these meetings remained secret for months.

https://www.vox.com/2018/3/7/17088908/erik-prince-trump-russia-seychelles-mueller

This person is likely the reason Mueller was able to put the pieces together so well, given the enormous complexity of his job.

[H2O Man]

57. In terms of federal cases,

the courts have long recognized that defense attorneys will leak to select investigative reporters. For example, in the Tim McVeigh case, after prosecutors complained, the judge noted the defense did not have the same financial resources. It's an unwritten rule. Happened to a degree during the Plame scandal, as well.

[Tatiana]

58. Yes, but who was a defendant back in December of 2016?

There is someone of Trump's inner circle who tried to sound the alarm.

This person sent an anonymous letter to the WaPo days after the December 1st, 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Kislyak. This was the meeting where they also planned to meet elsewhere (Seychelles) to establish the "back-channel" with Russia.

It might be Flynn. He did walk away with a sweetheart deal.

What should terrify us all is that there was a Republican who was so disturbed by what took place at that meeting that he/she sent an anonymous letter to the Washington Post to call attention to what was going on.

This is a level of corruption and treason far beyond anything we could ever imagine.

[H2O Man]

61. Right, but .....

Let's look closer. Certainly, there was someone in the transition team, who was concerned about what he/she either saw, or heard about. It is probably safe to rule out the active participants – especially those who would continue to break the law, or lie to investigators. This includes Flynn. And it was most likely someone on the edge of the action.

The transition team had two sub-groups. One was, of course, the true believers. The second were the more mainstream republicans, who had been injected into the campaign to make Trump more acceptable, and/or were brought in the transition to provide much-needed structure. These people might have saw things they knew were troubling.

There are two actions such a person might have taken: contact an attorney (even if the individual was an attorney, they, like non-attorneys, would probably have run it by a friend), and/or contact the FBI. Sending the note to the newspaper would seem like a second or third step, and likely done after seeking legal counsel. More, it appears it would fit the needs of the regular republicans, who were already aware that the FBI was looking at Trump & friends. It's not the type of thing an active participant would likely do.

If we look at who was on the transition team, there are at least two likely suspects. It is possible that it was Flynn – nothing would shock me at this point – but I do not think it was him. I'd look at the regular republicans who served for relatively short times, and who would be comfortable with Pence as president.

[Tatiana]

64. Excellent analysis. Truly outstanding.

This helps clarify my own thoughts, and brings me back to.... Christie.

[H2O Man]

67. Yep.

I'd look at him and Reince Priebus. A lawyer and a weak link in the Trump group.

[kentuck]

60. An old link: Maybe relevant?

http://www.newsweek.com/2017/06/23/flynn-russia-nuclear-energy-middle-east-iran-saudi-arabia-qatar-israel-donald-623396.html

<snip>
That the oil-rich, sun-soaked Arab Middle East would pursue nuclear energy seems paradoxical. But as The Economist noted in 2015, “Demand for electricity is rising, along with pressure to lower carbon emissions; nuclear plants tick both boxes.” And some of the region’s major players, like Egypt and Jordan, don’t have oil and gas resources and “want nuclear power to shore up the security of their energy supplies,” The Economist said.

So the genius idea the Americans advocated was a U.S.-Russian partnership to build and operate plants and export the dangerous spent fuel under strict controls. Flynn’s role would be helping X-Co/Iron Bridge design and implement a vast security network for the entire enterprise, according to an internal memo by ACU Strategic Partners, one of the lead companies involved, obtained by Newsweek.

Not only would the project revive the U.S. nuclear industry, but it would cost American taxpayers nothing, its principals asserted. It would be “funded entirely by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries,” according to the ACU memo. The cost for the kingdom? “Close to a trillion dollars,” says a project insider, who asked for anonymity in exchange for discussing internal matters.

Theoretically, the Saudis and other “participating Mid-East governments” would recoup some costs by selling energy “through their utilities,” according to the ACU plan. But if the Saudis and other Arab states buy in, it won’t be for energy, says Thomas Cochran, a prominent scientist and nuclear nonproliferation proponent involved with the ACU project. “They are buying security,” he tells Newsweek. Under the ACU plan, “they’re buying a security arrangement involving the U.S., Russia, France, and the U.K., eventually.”

... ...

[H2O Man]

62. Definitely relevant!

[ewagner]

70. Another good catch Kentuck.

Thanks for the reminder

[Demsrule86]

72. Good catch...there is another meeting that I find very interesting at the Mayflower Hotel...and

it is very likely that it was caught on tape...as some of the participants may have been already under surveillance.

[Demsrule86]

71. Trump is a fucking traitor...there is no doubt now.

[spanone]

73. K&R...