The nature of kingship in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth follows the events that occur during Macbeth’s unlawful rise to the throne......The themes of greed, arrogance and excessive political ambition are still, very relevant to the world today. Shakespeare got it right - his story of Macbeth still applies to today's world....
"The Wall Street Journal’s Shane Harris published a story that links former national security adviser Michael Flynn to a longtime right-wing operative named Peter W. Smith, who told Harris he had engaged with Russian hackers...... during the campaign he asked Russian cybersecurity experts to look for the 33,000 emails supposedly missing from Hillary Clinton’s private server...... Smith also claimed he was in touch with Michael Flynn and possibly his son, both of whom he knew through some earlier business dealings....citing a working relationship with Flynn’s consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group.... Smith said that Flynn’s son and chief of staff in his company, Michael G. Flynn, was helping with the operation....Flynn’s son, Michael G. Flynn, who worked as chief of staff in his father’s company....Smith was a Chicago private equity executive who for years worked on Republican causes, according to BuzzFeed News. He was also former chairman at Newt Gingrich's political action committee, Gopac.
Flynn Intel Group is a lobbying group, House Identification 433680001 and Senate Identification 401104161, established by Michael Flynn...... Mr. Flynn "registered his new company, Flynn Intel Group, from an Alexandria, Va., townhouse owned by Stanley A. McChrystal, a friend and fellow general-turned-consultant".......Kamil Ekim Alptekin, a Turkish businessman close to Turkey's leader is a client of FLYNN INTEL GROUP INC.
Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn has held a number of high-level military, intelligence, and military intelligence positions, including Assistant Director of National Intelligence and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. After retiring, he started a private firm, Flynn Intel Group, offering consulting/intelligence services to corporations and governments. When Trump tapped him to become National Security Advisor, the Flynn Intel Group's website disappeared....Flynn, who became national security advisor in the Trump administration, was forced to resign from the post just weeks into Trump’s presidency after admitting he misrepresented his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence.
Ten days after being interviewed by the Journal, Smith passed away at the age of 81....... but his history suggests it’s at least plausible that what he told Harris is true. Murray Waas wrote in Salon way back in 1998 about Smith’s role as the instigator of “Troopergate,” which led to the Paula Jones lawsuit against Bill Clinton (with which Kellyanne Conway’s husband George was intimately involved) and the rest was history.
Robert Mueller, the special counsel tasked with leading the investigation into Trump’s campaign ties to Russia, has reportedly “examined reports from intelligence agencies that describe Russian hackers discussing how to obtain emails from Mrs. Clinton’s server and then transmit them to Mr. Flynn via an intermediary.”
Kevin G. Hall and Ben Weider of the McClatchy Washington bureau reported that Trump’s business dealings in countries of the former Soviet empire were much more substantial than he’s let on and his ties to bankers, oligarchs and politicians in the area are much more consequential.
McClatchy’s investigation reveals how Trump sought a foothold not just in Russia but across the former Soviet empire. Not known before, the Trump Organization in 2012 negotiated with then-Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov for an obelisk-shaped tower to be built near the presidential palace, designed by architect John Fotiadis, who also did the Batumi project and lists offices in New York and the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. Trump Diamond lost out to a rival project in Astana for the tallest building in Central Asia, the 75-story Abu Dhabi Plaza.
Trump ventured more aggressively into the former Soviet empire from 2005 to 2015 than has previously been known, even seeking to have his name atop a massive shimmering glass tower in Astana, the post-Soviet capital of Kazakhstan.
Weeks before his inauguration, Donald Trump was allied with a company in the former Soviet republic of Georgia that planned to build a 47-story luxury tower in the Black Sea resort of Batumi.....The tower, nixed in early January, was to bear Trump’s name – in exchange for which he would receive royalties, as he does from similar arrangements around the world......But the company, Silk Road Group, had business ties and relationships that could have been problematic for a sitting U.S. president....It was also a strategic fuel supplier to U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, and had partnered with a Kazakh bank whose former leader is accused of stealing billions and laundering some of it through luxury real estate in the United States, including Trump-branded condos.
The Trump Organization was involved in dozens of deals throughout the region with money traced back to Russian sources, in some cases including the big oil company Rosneft. Once again, Trump’s close relationship with Bayrock CEO Felix Sater, a known mob associate with ties to the CIA, the FBI and the Russian government, was implicated along with another controversial company called the Silk Road Group. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, who has strong personal and business ties to Ukraine, was also involved with many of these negotiations. (Cohen was recently served with a subpoena by the House Intelligence Committee.)
The big tower project in Georgia mentioned in the McClatchy report wasn’t canceled until Jan. 6, 2017, two weeks before Trump took office. Trump said it was solely for business concerns (since he believes that it’s impossible for a president to have conflicts of interest) but the company he was involved with, Silk Road, said it was because of the massive publicity that was sure to follow...More likely the project was ditched because of the company’s relationship with Russia and Iran, two countries under U.S. sanctions. That would have been a bit of a problem for a sitting U.S. president, even one who believes that nothing is illegal if the president does it.
When Trump and Silk Road Group deep-sixed their Batumi arrangement via a joint statement on Jan. 6 a Trump Organization executive said the decision was “purely business related” and not because of ethical concerns.......Silk Road, however, attributes the deal’s collapse in part to “intense media scrutiny”
McClatchy reports that “none of this is revealed in Trump’s financial disclosure statements. And since he hasn’t released his tax returns, these sorts of relationships are not apparent.”....There is a reason why Trump has been so desperate to end the Russia probe, and Occam’s razor says this is probably the reason....Meanwhile, the president has prevailed against all advice and will sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the upcoming G-20 meeting. ....
Trump’s attempt to penetrate the ex-Soviet empire began in 2005 when he inked a one-year deal with developer Bayrock Group, run by Kazakhs and Russian-émigré, felon and Trump associate Felix Sater, to find a suitable location in Moscow for a Trump tower. Bayrock failed in that attempt, though it teamed with Trump for projects in New York, Florida and Arizona....over the next two years Trump applied for trademarks for his name on a potential tower in Kazakhstan, and for Trump vodka there, too.
Felix Sater (born March 2, 1966) is a Russian-born American real estate developer and former managing director of Bayrock Group LLC, a real estate conglomerate based out of New York City, New York. Sater has been an advisor to many corporations, including The Trump Organization, Rixos Hotels and Resorts, Sembol Construction, Potok (formerly the Mirax Group), and TxOil.....In 1998, Sater pleaded guilty to for his involvement in a $40 million stock fraud scheme. In exchange for his guilty plea, he agreed to become an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and federal prosecutors, assisting with organized crime.....Felix Sater was a managing director of Bayrock Group LLC, as well as a senior advisor to Donald Trump and The Trump Organization when construction of the Trump SoHo began in 2006......Sater provided "information crucial to national security and the conviction of over 20 individuals, including those responsible for committing massive financial fraud and members of La Cosa Nostra.
"In late January 2017, Sater met with Ukrainian politician Andrey Artemenko and Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, at the Loews Regency in Manhattan to discuss a plan to lift sanctions against Russia. The proposed plan would require that Russian forces withdraw from eastern Ukraine and that Ukraine hold a referendum on whether Crimea should be "leased" to Russia for 50 or 100 years. Sater gave Cohen a written proposal in a sealed envelope that was delivered to then-National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn in early February.[9] On 20 February 2017 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rejected Russia "leasing" Crimea from Ukraine claiming "we cannot rent from ourselves".
In 1991, Sater got into an argument with a commodities broker at the El Rio Grande restaurant and bar in Midtown. He stabbed the man's cheek and neck with the stem of a margarita glass, breaking his jaw, lacerating his face, and severing nerves....Sater was convicted of first degree assault in 1993 and served a year in prison.
KEVIN G. HALL AND BEN WIEDER......McClatchy Washington Bureau
Heather Digby Parton, also known as "Digby," is a contributing writer to Salon. She was the winner of the 2014 Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article158518589.html
http://www.salon.com/2017/06/30/forget-the-stupid-tweets-theres-big-news-on-trumps-russia-connections-and-he-doesnt-want-you-to-read-it/
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