Proof of Collusion

by Seth Abramson

  In August 2018, a QIA-backed firm loans Kushner money again, when a company the QIA partly owns, Brookfield Asset Management, invests $700 million in the Kushner-held property at 666 Fifth Avenue, thereby allowing Kushner to pay off the entirety of the debt owed on it.87 According to Slate, because the QIA was one of the two purchasers of the 19.5 percent stake in Rosneft discussed in the Steele dossier, Special Counsel Mueller is now investigating all QIA-Kushner transactions. “[T]he stories of Kushner’s loans line up remarkably well with one of the Steele dossier’s core allegations of Russian bribery . . .” writes Slate. “[N]ew stories suggest that [Kushner] may have orchestrated a foreign policy crisis to pressure Qatar to bail him out. Months later, a firm linked to Qatar gave him a staggeringly large loan. All of these events suggest how Russia might have delivered a possible quid—a potential payment from a huge oil sale through back channels [a QIA-connected ‘loan’ to Kushner]—in return for a Trump administration quo—a reported promise of reduced sanctions [on Russia].”88 Importantly, Saudi Arabia’s blockade of Qatar began in June 2017; the Qataris loaned Kushner money almost immediately after Trump, on Kushner’s advice, tweeted that he supported the blockade in November 2017.89

  Should Kushner not be required to pay back any portion of the $884 million loaned to him (in total) by the two QIA-linked outfits, it could constitute the “brokerage” of the QIA/Glencore purchase of $10.2 billion in Rosneft that Sechin promised Trump. Trump’s lifting of sanctions on Rosneft—his intended plan upon entering the White House, as has since been reported—would so substantially raise Rosneft’s profits that any such brokerage would be worth it for the Qataris. For instance, if U.S. sanctions on Russia are dropped, ExxonMobil can once again partner with Rosneft in the world’s northernmost oil field, the Pobeda (Victory) field; a 2012 deal between Exxon and Rosneft to drill in it had earned then Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson the Russian Order of Friendship from Putin’s own hand.90 The Pobeda oil field was estimated in 2014 to hold at least 130 million tons of oil, which in 2018 would be worth approximately $60 billion—about six times what Glencore and QIA paid to own 19.5 percent of Rosneft.91

  Two days after Kushner, Flynn, Bannon, Nader, and the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates meet secretly at Trump Tower, on December 13, 2016, Trump nominates Rex Tillerson for secretary of state—doing so while Carter Page is in Moscow meeting with Rosneft executives and on the same day Jared Kushner meets with the chief executive of VEB.92

  By March 2018, “the Trump administration is . . . considering allowing Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium,” a decision that could lead to the Middle Eastern nation handing out over $80 billion in construction contracts to build sixteen nuclear reactors over the next twenty-five years.93 The United States, Russia, and China are slated to compete for these construction contracts; the Saudis could also seek the nuclear technology they need, however, from France, the United Kingdom, or even Russia instead of the United States.

  In the end, that’s exactly what the Saudis do: in August 2018, Haaretz writes, “Russia has staged a comeback in the Mideast, big time, to the extent that it may replace the United States as the leading foreign power in the region. Russia’s success results from a combination of both deft diplomacy and weapons and nuclear reactor sales to states throughout the region.”94 Haaretz adds, “Putin’s fundamental strategic objective is to restore Russian global leadership.”95

  Improving diplomatic relations with Russia is important to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates not merely because Russian construction firms may end up building any new nuclear reactors in the two countries; far more important, both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are hoping that better relations with Russia will lead to a softening of Russia’s support for two entities considered a potential threat to both Saudi and Emirati security: Iran and the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, which is propped up by Iranian human, military, and financial resources.96 The Saudis and Emiratis are joined in their enmity for Iran and its puppet regimes by Israel. This fact helps explain why George Nader, representing the interests of the crown princes of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and Joel Zamel, an Israeli business intelligence entrepreneur with Israeli government connections, tell Trump Jr. on August 3, 2016, that all three nations have a vested interest in seeing Trump elected president. Influential Saudis, Emiratis, and Israelis offer assistance to the Trump campaign because they believe Trump, not Clinton, is willing to do the one thing that will bring Putin back to the table in the Middle East: drop all sanctions on Russia.97 The New Yorker will write in July 2018 that “before the November, 2016, election, Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, floated to a longtime American interlocutor what sounded, at the time, like an unlikely grand bargain. The Emirati leader told the American that Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, might be interested in resolving the conflict in Syria in exchange for the lifting of sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.”98 The magazine adds that while the idea of a rapprochement between Russia and the United States has long deeply unnerved America’s European allies, “three countries that [in November 2016] enjoyed unparalleled influence with the incoming Administration—Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E.—have repeatedly encouraged their American counterparts to consider ending the Ukraine-related sanctions in return for Putin’s help in removing Iranian forces from Syria.”99

  It is in the midst of this years-long saga involving Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Russia, Syria, and Iran that Erik Prince flies to the Seychelles to meet with representatives from the United Arab Emirates and, at George Nader’s orchestration, on behalf of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, with Kirill Dmitriev from the Russian Direct Investment Fund. The QIA has just declined to loan Kushner hundreds of millions in much-needed money, allegedly angering Kushner; in the coming months Kushner will convince Trump to support Saudi Arabia’s blockade on the tiny Middle Eastern nation. The Saudi blockade will, by the end of 2017, help Kushner pressure Qatar into loaning him nearly a billion dollars.

  In January 2017, however, what the Saudis (and Emiratis) most want from Trump is nuclear technology—specifically, sales of same without a Section 123 Agreement prohibiting the Saudis from ever weaponizing their uranium.100 The opportunity exists, should the United States assent to these sales, for all parties to get what they want: the Trumps, as much as a billion dollars; the Russians, an end to sanctions; the Saudis and the UAE, nuclear reactors, an easing of Russian support for Iran, and the right to enrich uranium without prohibitions on its subsequent weaponization; Qatar, an end to the Saudi blockade, the favor of the Trump administration, and a very large—and likely to grow, should sanctions on Russia end—private stake in Russia’s state-owned oil company.

  In the Seychelles, Prince, acting as a Trump representative, meets with the UAE’s MBZ and Dmitriev, the latter not just the manager of Russia’s $10 billion sovereign wealth fund, but also a man “close to Vladimir Putin.”101 The purpose of the meeting is to set up a back channel between President-elect Trump and Putin, roughly the same effort that Kushner and Kislyak had been working on in early December.102 Prince will say to CNN of the meeting that he was already in the Seychelles on unrelated business with Emirati officials when he met “some fund manager—I can’t even remember his name.”103 Prince will tell CNN the meeting “probably lasted about as long as one beer.”104 In November 2017 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, a confident, combative Prince—appearing without a lawyer—will say he had no official or unofficial role in the Trump campaign, though he will concede regularly sending and sometimes delivering in person national security and foreign policy white papers to campaign CEO Steve Bannon at Trump Tower. He will also say that, while in the Seychelles, the Emiratis he was already scheduled to meet with merely “mentioned a guy I should meet who was also in town to see them” and who also “ran some sort of hedge fund.”105 He will agree, when asked, that the two men did discuss U.S.-Russia relations.106

  As Trum
p fills out his cabinet, Prince’s sister Betsy DeVos is nominated to be secretary of education, despite her being called “uniquely unprepared,” “unqualified,” and “dangerous” by U.S. News & World Report; “manifestly unqualified” and “woefully ignorant” by the Washington Post; and “unprepared and unqualified” by the Los Angeles Times.107 In the end, DeVos is confirmed only when Vice President Pence casts the tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate, two Republicans having bolted from their caucus to vote against the nomination alongside Senate Democrats.108 Tillerson is successfully nominated for and confirmed as secretary of state, despite the New York Times noting “bipartisan concerns that the globe-trotting leader of an energy giant has a too-cozy relationship with Vladimir V. Putin, the President of Russia.”109 And Jeff Sessions, the chairman of Trump’s National Security Advisory Committee, which included among its roster Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, J. D. Gordon, and Joseph Schmitz, is nominated to the post of attorney general, in part, Trump will later admit, because he assumed Sessions would “protect him” from any investigation into his, his family’s, or the campaign’s dealings with Russia.110 Sessions will run into problems after his successful confirmation, however, as he will be found to have provided inaccurate testimony under oath regarding his work as the National Security Advisory Committee’s chairman.111 His controversial answers before the Senate Judiciary Committee, deliberately evasive at best and perjury at worst, will lead to his recusal from the Trump-Russia investigation in March 2017.112

  On December 29, the Obama administration levels new sanctions on Russia. Putin’s decision not to retaliate against the new sanctions—his usual practice in such situations—raises concerns within the Obama administration that Russia has been promised an end to sanctions under the Trump presidency.113 Trump’s immediate reaction to Putin’s decision on Twitter—“Great move on delay (by V. Putin),” he tweets, adding, “I always knew he was very smart!”—does nothing to allay these concerns.114 The administration’s fears soon prove justified, not only because Flynn was in fact holding policy discussions—possibly negotiations—with Sergey Kislyak before Election Day, and thereafter began (or continued) negotiating sanctions with Kislyak during the presidential transition, but also because, as is revealed in June 2017, Trump did indeed have a “secret” plan to drop all sanctions on Russia after his inauguration. On the day President Obama issues new sanctions on Russia, Flynn speaks to Russia’s ambassador no fewer than five times by telephone, keeping in contact with K. T. McFarland at Mar-a-Lago between the calls. According to his December 2017 guilty plea for making false statements to the FBI, Flynn successfully convinces the Russians to refrain from retaliating against either Obama’s imposition of new sanctions or the outgoing president’s expulsion of thirty-five Russian diplomats from the United States.115

  Just after the first of the year, a group of CIA officers meet with their counterparts from Mossad, Israel’s primary intelligence agency, at Langley in Virginia. The CIA agents tell the Israelis that Trump is compromised by a foreign power, suffering under “leverages of pressure.” They warn the Israelis to “be careful” with intelligence sharing once Trump is in power.116

  On January 6, the U.S. intelligence community releases a joint FBI/CIA/NSA report, which concludes that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.”117 In a statement that day, Trump refuses to accept the findings of the FBI, CIA, and NSA that Russia, uniquely and discretely, attacked the 2016 presidential election, saying in part, “While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.”118

  On January 9, 2017, eleven days before Trump’s inauguration, BuzzFeed publishes a now famous thirty-five-page dossier of raw intelligence compiled for a succession of anti-Trump Republicans and Democrats. The curator of the intelligence, an Englishman named Christopher Steele, is a former Russia-desk head of the MI6; numerous intelligence sources in England will vouch for his credibility and the quality of his sources when his work comes under fire, almost immediately, from Trump.119 Steele’s dossier alleges that Trump aides coordinated with Kremlin agents throughout the 2016 general election season in a sanctions-relief-for-money quid pro quo coupled with active assistance from the Russians in attacking and undermining Hillary Clinton.120 Trump first learns of the dossier from his FBI director, James Comey, on January 6. Comey tells Trump that he is not the subject of an open counterintelligence investigation, despite the dossier’s allegations.121

  On January 11, less than forty-eight hours after BuzzFeed publishes the Steele dossier’s allegations, Trump says—one of the only times he ever does so—“As far as hacking, I think it was Russia.”122 He quickly adds, however, “But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people,”123 and then blames the Democrats for the hacking, saying, “I have to say this also, the Democratic National Committee was totally open to be hacked. They did a very poor job. They could’ve had hacking defense, which we [Republicans] had.”124

  On the eve of Trump’s inauguration, the New York Times reports that Comey’s Trump-Russia investigation is much deeper and broader, and uses more varied forms of evidence, than had previously been suspected, noting 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. The continuing counterintelligence investigation means that Mr. Trump will take the oath of office on Friday with his associates under investigation and after the intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government had worked to help elect him.125

  The Times will also forecast logistically sensitive times ahead for both Trump and the nation, observing that Trump will “oversee” the very agencies that have concluded he benefitted from Russian assistance and will therefore “have the authority to redirect or stop at least some of those efforts.”126 This prescient comment presages and summarizes a central drama of the early months of the Trump presidency.

  Annotated History

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  Nevertheless, within forty-eight hours of Trump’s November 8, 2016, election, Michael Flynn—who has no official role in the transition and has been denied a White House position by transition head Chris Christie—is cleared to contact Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government without involvement by the State Department. It is unknown who gave him permission to make the contact. By the next day, at the direction of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Christie has been fired from the presidential transition team; he will openly speculate that his objection to Flynn’s participation in the transition was a primary cause of his dismissal.

  According to the Washington Examiner, Jared Kushner’s involvement in the firing of Christie was partly motivated by Christie’s role in the prosecution of Jared’s father, Charles Kushner.127

  Trump went to extraordinary lengths to have Kushner named as one of his top advisers; to avoid anti-nepotism laws, Trump had to get an advisory opinion from the Department of Justice declaring the White House exempt from such regulations.128 Kushner spent the transition period building up his political capital in preparation for his new White House role, and his “purge” of the transition team, as the New York Times called it, was one of his first steps in further solidifying his position within Trump’s political orbi
t.129 The Times wrote in November 2016, “Both [former congressman Mike Rogers and defense and foreign policy adviser Matthew Freedman] were part of what officials described as a purge orchestrated by Jared Kushner. Mr. Kushner, a transition official said, was systematically dismissing people like Mr. Rogers who had ties with Mr. Christie.”130 It was Christie’s successful prosecution of Charles Kushner that had led indirectly to Jared Kushner’s disastrous, nearly financially ruinous decision to purchase 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City; the purchase was Kushner’s first major one after his father was incarcerated and Kushner took over Kushner Companies.131 According to NBC News, ever since the purchase of the property at 666 Fifth Avenue, Kushner Companies had been “bleeding money.”

  Several months after Trump’s inauguration, around the time that Saudi Arabia’s blockade on Qatar began, Charles Kushner met with the Qatari finance minister to discuss funding for 666 Fifth Avenue, a decision he later said was the “wrong thing to do.” Kushner defended his decision to attend the meeting, however, by saying that he met with the Qatari simply to tell him that he couldn’t accept any funding from Qatar while his son was assisting with U.S.-Qatar policy in the White House. When asked by Business Insider why he didn’t simply refuse the meeting in the first instance if he didn’t intend to take any money from the Qataris, Kushner had no answer—except to agree that doing so would have been the right thing to do.132

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  Vice President Mike Pence immediately replaces Christie as the head of the transition team, even as Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn toss in the trash all the binders profiling potential administration nominees that Christie had been compiling. Pence will later say that he had no knowledge of what Flynn was planning to do, and ultimately did, with respect to covertly negotiating U.S. foreign policy with the Russians.