With all the lies and denials, there is some truth revealed by Flynn’s cooperation even as redacted, that will make subsequent indictments and subpoenas explicable in the coming weeks.
The pieces of the puzzle around some otherwise inferential and redacted material in the Flynn sentencing memo indicate that the need for Kushner’s Russian back-channel had several different dimensions. Jarvanka has greater need to be nervous if only because of so much lying now being revealed.
Some of the direction for who’s next in the barrel could become clearer with the sentencing memos for Manafort and Cohen on Friday. More of the favor-trading with Russians may be revealed much as there’s a Butina plea deal forthcoming.
So far the systematic unfolding of #TrumpRussia has had some effect on POTUS’s unhingery much like the unmentioned parties like Kushner and Don Jr are coming into sharper focus.
The timeline around Flynn’s conversations is crucial because it shows what’s still in play for the president and Kushner — and why Mueller may have been content to lock in a cooperation agreement that carried relatively light penalties, as well as why Flynn’s assistance seems to have subsequently pleased the veteran prosecutor so much.
Kushner’s actions are also interesting because the Federal Bureau of Investigation has examined his own communications with Kislyak — and Kushner reportedly encouraged Trump to fire his FBI director, James Comey, in the spring of 2017, when Comey was still in the early stages of digging into the Trump-Russia connection.
Comey, and his successor, Mueller, have been focused on possible favor-trading between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. We know that Russian hackers directed by Russian intelligence operatives penetrated Democrat computer servers in 2016 and gave that information and email haul to WikiLeaks to disseminate as part of an effort to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. Trump was also pursuing that business deal in Moscow in 2016 and had other projects over the years with a Russian presence. What might the Kremlin have been expecting in return? A promise to lift U.S. economic sanctions?
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Kushner’s role in these events isn’t discussed in Mueller’s sentencing memo for Flynn. The absence of greater detail might cause Kushner to worry: If Flynn offered federal authorities a different version of events than Kushner — and Flynn’s version is buttressed by documentation or federal electronic surveillance of the former general — then the president’s son-in-law may have to start scrambling (a possibility I flagged when Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017).
www.bloomberg.com/...
Meanwhile a “spy swap” meme has arisen for Martina Butina even if that’s wishful thinking by the White House, since they might hope anachronistically that SMERSH will “take care” of her (see Khashoggi). The over/under on a Snowden-Butina swap might be no worse than Paul Goldschmidt leaving the Diamondbacks for the Cardinals.
According to The New York Times, Paul Erickson wrote an email to the Trump campaign in May 2016 offering to set up a back-channel meeting between the candidate and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump,” Erickson wrote, the Times reported. “He wants to extend an invitation to Mr. Trump to visit him in the Kremlin before the election.”
By then, Erickson had known Butina for years. Butina, a gun-rights activist from Russia, attended grad school at American University while building relationships in the U.S. conservative movement, with Erickson often serving as her guide.
www.thedailybeast.com/...