Why use a "back channel" when you've got a hotline?

[struggle4progress]

LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV
03.10.2018•8:00 AM

... When was the last time you traveled to an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean to meet up with people who live across the street from you?

That’s .. what .. Erik Prince says he did in January of 2017 when he .. flew to .. Seychelles to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, his national security adviser, and George Nader, a financial adviser to the crown prince. Erik Prince knew all of those guys from the UAE. His company had contracts with the crown prince. He’d known George Nader and done business with him for years ... Prince lives in the UAE! He could have hailed an Uber and been meeting with Zayed al-Nahyan and his henchmen in a matter of minutes, rather than flying all the way to the Seychelles.

... according to .. George Nader .. Erik Prince flew to the Seychelles on behalf of .. Trump to meet with Kirill Dmitriev, a fund manager from Moscow .. there on behalf of Vladimir Putin. Nader arranged the meeting .. and is now telling Mueller's investigators everything he knows about it.

Nader was arrested .. at Dulles Airport on his way to .. the big party .. Trump was throwing .. to celebrate his first year in office. FBI agents served Nader with a subpoena to appear before the Mueller grand jury in Washington, as well as a search warrant. They searched Nader’s bags and seized all of his personal electronics. It is not known if Nader was charged with a crime at the time, or if he has secretly entered into a plea agreement as George Papadopoulos did ... But it is known that Nader is cooperating with Mueller’s team ... The only reason witnesses are called before a grand jury is if prosecutors believe they have knowledge that a crime has been committed. Nader has appeared before Mueller’s grand jury at least once and maybe more times than that ...

https://www.salon.com/2018/03/10/why-use-a-back-channel-when-you-have-got-a-hotline-mueller-turns-to-the-saga-in-the-seychelles/

[Historic NY]

1. As Malcolm Nance said yesterday, money, money laundering.

[Dave Starsky]

2. With all the ellipses...

I found myself.. reading this... in Christopher Walken's.... voice.

[Igel]

4. Or this:

"We ... to establish ... domestic ... welfare ... do ordain ... the United States of America.

Section 1.
All legislative powers ... shall be vested ... in the United States. ...

Section 2.
... the People of the several States ... shall have the Qualifications requisite for ... the Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall ... be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen."

(So on and so forth.)

Congress shall make ... law ... prohibiting ... the freedom of speech, ... of the press; the right of the people ... to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

A well regulated ... people ... shall ... be infringed."

In a multitude of ellipses there wanteth not mischief.

[struggle4progress]

7. You can easily check whether my edits affect meaning, since the link is given

[iamateacher]

3. Great article

Thanks!

[Igel]

5. Deniability. Discretion.

A backchannel is just a secret way of communicating. Often outside of the usual, known ways, because they're easier to keep secret--nobody's watching.

There have been backchannels at various times between the US and elsewhere. The rapprochement between the US and China was arranged through a backchannel. Even during wartime or periods of really ratcheted-up tensions, there are often backchannels to get things done that need to get done. Sometimes they're done with private citizens; sometimes lower-ranking officials or legislators can serve as go-betweens. Sometimes they're between a leader and a faction in the other government because their top dog needs prepping or convincing.

At the height of the Cold War there were backchannels between Russia and the US, Britain, France, messages that could be delivered that might open up, eventually, "frontchannels" or could be used to discuss things of common interest that the official channels couldn't bear. Perhaps because there was a law prohibiting communication was involved; perhaps because even secret communications through the usual channels tend to be known to too many people, and if a lowly diplomatic aide tries to talk to the country's leader it's suspicious. Even during the war there was a backchannel between Hitler and Stalin--there was no way to negotiate publicly, or even confidentially, so Stalin or the presidium would have a single trusted person entrust the message to a priest visiting the USSR or leaving the USSR. Japan tried to establish a backchannel to help end or alter the end of WWII in the Pacific. It might take weeks for the message to arrive, but that was fine. And if the priest was caught with the message, the response would be a Putin-like, "Who? What? No!"

There were backchannels between the Israelis and Palestinians, as well. And this is especially true when a new leader will be coming along and you want to get an early start--maybe to keep things from staying as bad, maybe to keep them from getting worse. Where "bad" really is in the eye of the beholder.

A lot of diplomacy has to be conducted in secret; any call for transparency in such negotiations is a call for cessation. Is it risky? Sure. If you don't trust the person doing the backchanneling, of course it's always nefarious and treasonous. But this kind of thing sometimes leads to surprise meetings at which everything is publicly dealt with.

[struggle4progress]

8. ... Did Kushner and Flynn realize that using Russian communications channels would either evade

or appear to evade the U.S. intelligence community’s own foreign intelligence surveillance activities? It’s hard to believe they didn’t. Of course, it’s possible that the information they were going to share with the Russians wouldn’t have undermined the U.S. But if that’s the case — if they were just going to talk about Syria military de-confliction, or the future of counter-ISIS activities — why would they want to deliberately hide that from their own government? It is the role of the U.S. intelligence community, after all, to provide both tactical and strategic information to our own military and intelligence personnel who may be in harm’s way, as well as to our allies in the region ...

How to Understand Kushner’s ‘Back-Channel’
Back-channels might be a regular part of government operations, but not this one.
By CARRIE CORDERO June 06, 2017

[poboy2]

6. To avoid friendly detection is the ONLY answer. -nt

[struggle4progress]

9. ... If there was "no collusion" why did the Trump transition team work so hard

to set up a back channel with Russia? ...Wednesday .. The Washington Post reported that .. Mueller is zeroing in on .. Erik Prince. Mueller is apparently .. interested in a meeting .. in the Seychelles during the .. transition, in which they reportedly discussed setting up a back channel between Trump and Moscow. That .. apparently contradicts testimony Prince gave before Congress ... If true, this would be at least the third known attempt to set up a back channel ... In December of 2016, Jared Kushner, Michael Flynn, and then–Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak secretly met .. and Kushner later testified .. that Kislyak had suggested they set up a back channel. Two weeks later, Kushner and Flynn secretly met with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates, and discussed setting up a back channel ...

https://newrepublic.com/minutes/147332/no-collusion-trump-transition-team-work-hard-set-back-channel-russia