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Russia Is Finally Getting Its Money’s Worth With Trump’s Latest Kremlin Gift Basket

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Despite the overwhelming influence of a convergence of interests between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, many skeptics about a potential conspiracy or covert alliance between the two have argued that the Kremlin hasn’t gotten much in exchange for its efforts to help Trump get elected.

While Trump has been rhetorically soft on Putin and has waged a public relations campaign against NATO, the some of the overt actions of his administration — launching missiles at Syria, providing arms to the Ukraine, and imposing sanctions on Russian invidiuals and organizations — have gone directly against the Kremlin’s interests, these skeptics say. There has been some truth to these claims, though much of the aggressive action toward Russia has been driven by Congress and fought by the Trump administration.

But on Wednesday, the Trump administration took two major steps in line with Russia’s interests that may help make all the effort Putin went to in supporting his candidacy worth it.

First, and most substantially, Trump announced, out of the blue, that the United States will be pulling out of Syria.

“We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” Trump said on Twitter. Officials have confirmed that planning is underway to withdraw troops.

As analyst Nick Patton Walsh explained, this was a big win for Putin’s interests in the region.

“Without the US in the ring, Russia is the main military force in the post-war Syria,” he wrote in a piece for CNN. “However you divine it, Trump seems to have few qualms about doing things that will please Putin.”

The claim that ISIS is “defeated” in Syria, however, is overly optimistic. Martin Chulov, a Middle East reporter for The Guardian, explained:

The long fight against Islamic State looks good on a map, but it is yet to be decisive on the battlefield.

The terror group has lost more than 95% of the territory it claimed in 2014 and the juggernaut that threatened to shred the region’s borders has been battered back to where it all began for the group’s earliest incarnation – a sliver of land along the Euphrates River, bordering Iraq and Syria.

There, Kurdish-led forces, backed by US air support, have been fighting it out with diehard extremists in towns and villages in Syria’s far eastern Deir ez-Zor province.

At least 2,500 Isis fighters remain, all survivors of routs to the east and west of their last redoubt. Colossal ruin lays in their wake on both sides of the river. But the group retains the capacity to do even more damage, especially if let off the hook now.

Meanwhile, Trump’s own Republican allies are extremely skeptical of his new announcement.

“Withdrawal of this small American force in Syria would be a huge Obama-like mistake,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

“The decision to pull out of Syria was made despite overwhelming military advice against it,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). “It is a major blunder.

The GOP has often been far too eager to wield the might of the U.S. military, and there may, in fact, be good reason for the United States to pull out of Syria. But ISIS being “defeated” is not one of them, and it is suspicious that the president primarily chooses to buck his party when it aligns with Putin’s interests.

And despite the major stakes of the decision, CNBC’s Christina Wilkie reports that a senior administration official is refusing to answer any questions about the “deliberative process” behind the Syria pullout. This sugests that there likely was no deliberative process — the president acted on his own.

“I’ve never seen a decision like this,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) after meeting at the White House to discuss the decision. “For all involved, this was a major shock.”

Others who are often critical of the president also found the move bewildering.

“Why would Trump do this now? Who knows?” wrote commentator Max Boot. “Given that he is acting at odds with his advisers, this is clearly not the result of a normal policy-review process. This is the Trump Doctrine in operation: Trump does whatever he wants. It could be based on what he had for breakfast — or there could be something more sinister going on.”

Another move brought by the Trump administration Wednesday will likely mean Putin is going to be even more pleased with the president. The Treasury Department annouced Wednesday that it will be rolling back sanctions — passed by Congress as punishment for Russia’s election interference — on entities tied to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Ostensibly, this move was taken because Deripaska is divesting a significant portion of his financial stakes in these entities. However, there are serious reasons for concern about this action.

For one, Deripaska himself has troubling ties to the Trump campaign. Court filings show that Trump Campaign Chair Paul Manafort was heavily indebted to Deripaska. And uncovered emails have shown that, during the campaign, Manafort reportedly offered his position within the Trump campaign as having the potential to resolve his debt to Deripaska.

But even leaving aside the shady Deripaska connection, the Treasury’s move is troubling on its own terms.

As law professor Jed Shugerman pointed out, the entities buying up Deripaska’s shares in the sanctioned businesses are themselves deeply suspicious. One of those entities, VTB Bank, has been named as a potential funder for the Trump Tower Moscow project the president was working on during the campaign. The other firm is Glencore.

“Glencore is being investigated for money laundering, and has been doing big business with Deripaska for years,” noted Shugerman.

So after fighting Congress over Russia sanctions all along the way, the Trump administration is now rolling back some of these key penalties under highly dubious circumstances.

In response to the rollback of the sanctions, former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocah said: “So, the quid pro quo in plain sight.”

It’s not clear yet if there was an explicit conspiracy between Trump and Russians in the run-up to the 2016 election. But is clear that Putin had a strong desire for Trump to win — in part because he hated Hillary Clinton and in part because he thought Trump would be amenable to his interests. This Christmas season, it’s clear Putin is getting exactly what he wanted.

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Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

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Last year House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer acknowledged former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House advisor Jared Kushner had “crossed the line” when he accepted $2 billion in foreign investment funds from the government of Saudi Arabia as he started up a private investment firm just months after leaving the White House.

Now, Chairman Comer says he will not open an investigation into any possible wrongdoing, Huffpost reports, despite top Democrats alleging Kushner engaged in “apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals.”

On Tuesday, the top Democrat on Comer’s Oversight Committee, Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, and Democrat Robert Garcia, the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, formally requested Comer “convene a hearing regarding Jared Kushner’s apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals involving investments in exchange for official actions and to examine the resulting threats to our national security.”

“This Committee cannot claim to be ‘investigating foreign nationals’ attempts to target and coerce high-ranking U.S. officials’ family members by providing money or other benefits in exchange for certain actions while continuing to ignore these matters,” Raskin and Garcia wrote. “We therefore urge you to work with us to finally investigate Mr. Kushner’s receipt of billions of dollars from foreign governments in deals that appear to be quid pro quos for actions he undertook as senior White House adviser in Donald Trump’s Administration.”

READ MORE: Greene Says She Won’t Take Responsibility if Johnson Loses Speaker’s Gavel Before Election

The American people are deeply concerned about these business dealings and Mr. Kushner’s apparent influence peddling. We must address
those concerns with a fair, impartial, and public process to understand the truth and to institute meaningful reforms to safeguard public confidence in our executive branch.”

The two Democrats in their letter say their “request comes in light of allegations that Jared Kushner is pursuing new foreign business deals, just as Donald Trump becomes the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency. Last year, well before these new allegations came to light, Chairman Comer had already conceded that Jared Kushner’s conduct ‘crossed the line of ethics’ and promised that the Oversight Committee would ‘have some questions for Trump and some of his family members, including Jared Kushner.'”

Raskin and Garcia paint a picture of “Kushner’s pattern of profiting off of his time in the White House.”

Citing The New York Times (apparently this article), they write, “Jared Kushner was closing in on investments in Albania and Serbia, leveraging relationships he built during his time as a senior adviser in his father-in-law’s White House. Reportedly, Mr. Kushner is considering an investment on the site of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense.”

“Mr. Kushner is reportedly being advised by Richard Grenell, another former senior Trump Administration official who served as U.S. Ambassador to Germany and, concomitantly, as ‘special envoy for peace negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo.’ Mr. Grenell reportedly ‘pushed a related plan’ for redevelopment of the same site during his time in the Trump Administration.”

READ MORE: Trump Says He Thinks He’s ‘Allowed’ to Accept Foreign Money to Pay Fines

“In pursuing investment opportunities in Albania, Mr. Grenell and Mr. Kushner have been openly leveraging their relationship with Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albania. While Commander-in-Chief, President Trump received unconstitutional payments from Prime Minister Rama and other senior Albanian government officials who spent thousands of dollars at theTrump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., over three separate stays,” Raskin and Garcia write.

They also allege, “Mr. Kushner successfully overruled State Department officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to make President Trump’s first foreign trip as President to Saudi Arabia. Mr. Kushner personally intervened to inflate the value of a U.S.-Saudi arms deal and to finalize the deal President Trump signed, which was worth $110 billion. Mr. Kushner
also provided diplomatic cover and support to the Crown Prince after the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, an American permanent resident and journalist. Mr. Khashoggi’s murder was assessed by American Intelligence to have been approved by the Crown Prince himself.”

Despite their extensive allegations, Chairman Comer is refusing to open an investigation.

“Unlike the Bidens, Jared Kushner has a legitimate business and has a career as a business executive that predates Donald Trump’s political career,” Comer said, as HuffPost reports. “Democrats’ latest letter is part of their playbook to shield President Biden from oversight.”

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Greene Says She Won’t Take Responsibility if Johnson Loses Speaker’s Gavel Before Election

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Despite filing a motion to vacate the chair last week, which could end Mike Johnson’s short term as Speaker, and despite pummeling him in the press, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) says she will take no responsibility if House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries becomes Speaker of the House before the November election.

Appearing on right-wing media Tuesday, the far-right Georgia Republican targeted Speaker Johnson again, telling GOP voters Johnson stabbed them “in the back.”

Johnson “has a duty and responsibility to care for our conference,” Greene told Real America’s Voice. “That means not force us to vote on full-term abortion, funding the trans agenda, DEI funding, 300 million to the Ukraine war, and many other horrific far-left funding wishlist items that the Democrats were thrilled with.”

“He shouldn’t make us vote on that in order to pay our military soldiers. That’s outrageous. It’s also an election year,” she continued, “and that means that Republicans are out trying to get re-elected and he forced our Republican conference, those that voted for this basically walked the plank for him and that is outrageous.”

READ MORE: $500 Per Second: Ronna McDaniel Reportedly Has a Few Expectations

After talking for several minutes about how Johnson “broke” and “violated” the rules by holding votes to keep the government from shutting down, she insisted her attacks are “not personal against Mike Johnson.”

“I filed the motion to vacate basically issuing a pink slip saying you’re going to be fired, we will not tolerate this any longer. And Republican voters all over this country agree with me,” she insisted.

In October, after Kevin McCarthy was ousted by his own party as Speaker of the House, CBS News reported its new polling “shows the American public wants the next Republican speaker to prioritize federal spending cuts, but also work across the aisle with Democrats and stand up against the ‘MAGA’ movement.”

Declaring, “Our conference needs a new Speaker of the House,” Greene insisted her actions have no effect on Republicans, who increasingly are exiting Congress early.

She also insisted that pinning a possible Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries on her is merely “twist” and “spin.”

READ MORE: ‘Absurd & Dangerous’: Truth Social Made Donald Trump Billions Today

“This is simple math,” she said. “The more Republicans like Mike Gallagher that resign and leave early, guess what that means we have less Republicans in the House. So every time a Mike Gallagher or Ken Buck leaves that brings our members down and brings us dangerously closer to being in the minority. It’s not Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

“I am not going to be responsible for Hakeem Jeffries being Speaker of the House. I am not going to for a Democrat majority taking over our Republican majority. That lies squarely, squarely on the shoulders of these Republicans that are leaving early because they don’t have the intestinal fortitude to handle the real fight, and the responsibility that comes with leadership at the end of our Republic when our country is nearly destroyed and when our Constitution is being ran through a paper shredder. So no one is going to blame that on me.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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$500 Per Second: Ronna McDaniel Reportedly Has a Few Expectations

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Former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who was ousted by NBC News chairman Cesar Conde Tuesday after massive in-house and public outrage over signing her as a paid contributor, reportedly has some expectations about what she is owed.

Anger over McDaniel’s hiring was palpable at MSNBC, where the news network’s top hosts on-air denounced the decision to sign someone who allegedly assisted in trying to overturn the 2020 election. The New York Times on Tuesday reported, “a review of her record shows she was, at times, closely involved in and supportive of Mr. Trump’s legal and political maneuvering ahead of the violent attempt to block Congress from certifying Mr. Biden’s victory on Jan. 6.”

McDaniel’s price tag generated additional outrage, as some noted NBC News had recently laid off 13 researchers yet opted to pay her $300,000 a year. (According to the NBC News Guild, executives had “illegally terminated 13 union journalists.”)

According to Politico, McDaniel expects to have her full two-year contract paid in full.

“McDaniel expects to be fully paid out for her contract, two years at $300,000 annually, since she did not breach its terms, we’re told — meaning that her single, not-quite-20-minute interview Sunday could cost the Peacock more than $30,000 per minute, or $500 per second.”

READ MORE: ‘Absurd & Dangerous’: Truth Social Made Donald Trump Billions Today

McDaniel is also lawyer-shopping.

“McDaniel spoke yesterday with Bryan Freedman, renowned lawyer to the estranged cable-news stars, to discuss legal options even beyond recouping the dollar value of her original contract,” Politico reports. “While no arrangement is final, a person close to McDaniel tells us, Freedman would be an obvious choice: He represented Megyn Kelly in her own acrimonious parting with NBC, as well as ousted anchors Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson in disputes with their respective former networks.”

“McDaniel, we’re told, is exploring potential defamation and hostile work environment torts after MSNBC’s top talent — momentarily her colleagues — took turns Monday blasting her on air. (NBC declined to comment about the $600,000 figure or her potential claims.)”

Politico also reports that on Sunday, after Chuck Todd’s on-air remarks denouncing McDaniel’s hiring after her “Meet the Press” interview, McDaniel “heard directly” from NBC News’ senior vice president of politics, Carrie Budoff Brown, and NBC News’ president of editorial, Rebecca Blumenstein, saying “that they’d have her back and the controversy would pass, according to the McDaniel ally.”

NBCUniversal News Group chair Cesar Conde sent an email to employees Tuesday announcing the network had cut ties with McDaniel. But Politico reports, neither Conde nor any other “top NBC brass” communicated to McDaniel directly before the email went out that she was done at the network.

READ MORE: ‘Travesty of Justice’: Legal Experts Stunned Over Unexplained Ruling Helping Trump

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