MBS 2 S A

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huge booster iran war 4 26 see CORRUPT 3 KUSHNER

bak 1119

ntbcw mbz uae emirati

see saudi

NUKE PWR 8 26

CRYPTO? TRUMP KIDS KUSHNER? SKYDANCE ELLISON CNN

see sportwashing trump golf

primary on dictator murder, ghg

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biden fist bump

hu rights abuses cont (women)

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mbs asked mil aid houti? fail

an 9 26

Phone call between Trump and billionaire monarchs ends in embarrassment

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RELATED? 8 26 GUK

What is the US-Saudi Arabia nuclear deal and why is it causing concern?

The US and Saudi Arabia have agreed a landmark deal that would use American technology and expertise to establish a civilian nuclear program in the Gulf country, a move that has caused alarm across the Middle East and through the corridors of power in Washington.

Much of the deal remains unclear, but concerns centre on whether Saudi Arabia would have the capability to enrich uranium domestically, and what that means for nuclear proliferation.

US signs landmark nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that could pave the way for domestic nuclear enrichment

What is the nuclear deal that’s agreed?

The 30-year deal is designed to meet the “energy needs” of oil-rich Saudi Arabia, according to a statement from US energy secretary Chris Wright.

Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s economic plan, Saudi Arabia aims to use nuclear power for some electricity generation, thereby boosting oil sales by freeing up more supplies for export. The deal would make American companies central in the development of the country’s nuclear infrastructure, while denying competitors like China and Russia a foothold in the country.

The deal is thought to be worth tens of billions of dollars, and is the continuation of a plan first conceived during the Biden administration. That deal would have seen the US agree to nuclear cooperation in exchange for Saudi Arabia establishing formal ties with Israel.

The prospect of normalisation between Israel and Riyadh has been derailed by the 7 October attack by Hamas, and the resulting years-long war in Gaza. The Trump administration has chosen to push the deal through without the wider agreement with Israel.

Will Saudi Arabia be able to enrich uranium on its soil?

The deal reportedly paves the way for the building of a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia, but this would be contingent on a joint US-Saudi study determining such a facility is necessary.

The study would run for two years, potentially leaving Donald Trump’s successor in the White House with the decision on whether to sign off on allowing domestic enrichment in Saudi Arabia.

Many countries with nuclear energy industries do not enrich uranium domestically – a process which could theoretically produce highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. They instead rely on importing the fuel for reactors.

Part of the US justification for going through with the deal, is that Washington would have oversight of any enriched uranium and spent fuel from reactors, ensuring they could not be reused to make a bomb.

Why is it controversial?

Nuclear nonproliferation groups have warned for years that such a deal could set Saudi Arabia on the path to develop a nuclear weapon. Riyadh has in the past said it would need a nuclear weapon if its regional rival, Iran, acquired one.

The US is engaged in a war with Iran that is in part being fought to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear bomb or enriching uranium to weapons-grade level.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio has dismissed concerns about the Saudi deal, saying the US is “not going to reach any agreement with any country in the world that leads to the risk of proliferation”.

The Trump administration’s nuclear cooperation agreement was signed alongside a separate “bilateral safeguards agreement” which it said would provide for adequate monitoring.

But experts have expressed alarm that Wednesday’s deal lacks the oversight and guardrails of previous nuclear agreements. Saudi Arabia will reportedly not be subject to the most rigorous monitoring from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Trump gifts Saudi Arabia a nuclear win | Politics Weekly America

24:00

Trump gifts Saudi Arabia a nuclear win | Politics Weekly America

The IAEA’s “Additional Protocol” has been implemented by dozens of countries, and was one of the requirements of the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran from which Trump withdrew in 2018. It involves inspection and verification to ensure that countries are using nuclear material solely for peaceful purposes.

When the US struck a similar deal with the United Arab Emirates, the UAE agreed not to seek enrichment or process spent atomic fuel, a measure that became known as the “gold standard” for nations wanting atomic power. The Saudi-US agreement reportedly does not include this gold standard.

Can this deal be blocked?

Opponents have long argued that providing Saudi Arabia with a domestic nuclear program will set off a race across the Middle East for other countries to pursue similar capabilities. Israel – which is known to have a secretive nuclear weapons program – has reportedly raised concerns that the deal could launch a regional arms race.

Democrats in Congress have expressed similar concerns. Senator Chris Murphy said the agreement would “set off a nuclear race in the region, further disincentivizing Iran from limiting its own program”.

However, Murphy and his colleagues in Congress will probably have difficulty blocking the deal. The deal is expected to be submitted to Congress for approval in the coming days, but to block the agreement, Congress would need to pass a joint resolution and have a two-thirds majority to override the president’s veto.

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an 4 26

no lnx

Trump's son-in-law has a $5 billion problem

:{Jared Kushner applauds during U.S. President Donald Trump's State of the Union address in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 24, 2026.

Thom Hartmann March 20, 2026

There are several clear winners from Trump’s attack on Iran:

— Russia, who can again fund its violence against Ukraine with new oil revenue and now claims its unprovoked attack on that nation is consistent with this new Trump Doctrine;

— Saudi Arabia, which has long hated Iran and lobbied since at least 2008 for the US to attack that country;

— the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has similarly pushed America to attack Iran since at least 2010;

— the American defense weapons industry, which is making additional billions;

— Don Jr. and Eric, who have taken a big position in a drone-manufacturing business, getting them in on the Pentagon gravy train;

— Donald Trump himself, who’s succeeded in largely pushing Epstein off the front page;

— and Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s called for American strikes against Iran since 1992 and will stay out of prison as long as the war continues.

The losers include:

— The credibility of the United States and the rule of international law;

— the families of 13 dead and 140 injured American soldiers and airmen,

— the families of at least 160 dead Iranian little girls and thousands of other dead civilians in a dozen countries,

— American taxpayers who’re paying for the bombs;

— and future prospects for world peace.

But the biggest winner may be Jared Kushner, who apparently pushed Trump to initiate the war while he’s trying to solicit $5 billion from the same Arab states that have been begging American administrations for decades to attack Iran.

Back on March 5th, I speculated here on Hartmann Report that Kushner and Witkoff had been negotiating with Iran in bad faith, possibly to get the Iranian leadership to meet together in one place so Netanyahu (who used to sleep in Kushner’s bedroom) could kill them all with a missile strike.

Three years earlier, I laid out the backstory of how Kushner allegedly helped MBS take over the Saudi kingdom and was richly rewarded with $2 billion to fund his new investment venture.

Now, The New York Times is reporting that Kushner is back at the Arab trough, trying to pick up an additional $5 billion for his company from the same states that have been begging America to attack Iran for decades.

This represents a massive and apparently corrupt conflict of interest, as Congressman Jamie Raskin and Senator Ron Wyden pointed out when they called for an investigation into Kushner acting as an unregistered foreign agent in violation of the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. They wrote:

“This revelation is deeply disturbing, as Mr. Kushner appears to be influencing U.S. foreign policy by acting as a political consultant to the Saudi government while also accepting their money. … Mr. Kushner’s proximity to President Trump and the potential for political interference warrants the appointment of a Special Counsel.”

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, in a brilliant imitation of Vladimir Putin, is threatening news organizations for their reporting on the War. He seems upset about news stories that Trump may have ignored warnings from his top generals that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz if we attacked them; those reports appear to be well-sourced.

And it appears it was Kushner who was one of the main cheerleaders for this war, risks to world oil supplies and the possibility of the conflict igniting WWIII be damned.

Trump himself said that Kushner had advised him that Iran was preparing to strike America, something that’s patently impossible; they don’t have any missiles capable of reaching the United States and had just offered to sign a new deal promising never to develop any. Nonetheless, Trump — in an eerie echo of Bush’s lies about Iranian WMD — told America:

“Within a week, [Iran was] going to attack us, 100 percent. They were ready. They had all these missiles, far more than anyone thought, and they were going to attack us.”

Did I mention that Kushner is asking the Saudis and Emiratis for another $5 billion? As Popular Information reported:

“Kushner’s largest investor is the Saudi Arabian government, which provided Kushner with $2 billion in funding in 2021. Each year, Saudi Arabia pays Kushner 1.25% of its investment, $25 million, as a ‘management fee.’ Meaning he has received in excess of $100 million from the Saudi government over the last few years.

“Notably, ‘Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made multiple private phone calls to Trump’ in February, advocating a U.S. attack,’ according to reporting in the Washington Post. Trump’s comments reveal that Kushner used his role in Geneva to push Trump toward the outcome favored by his biggest client. Affinity Partners also received more than $200 million from the UAE. According to CNN, behind the scenes, the UAE was also lobbying Trump to strike Iran.”

Never before in American history have US negotiators had massive personal financial stakes in the outcome of their own negotiations. It’s a clear violation of the Constitution’s and US law’s ban on foreign emoluments, and possibly numerous anti-bribery laws.

With Congress paralyzed by terrified, spineless Republicans refusing to even look into the possibility that billionaire Trump, billionaire Kushner, billionaire Witkoff, and billionaires in the Middle East have thrown America into war just to enrich themselves, the burden has fallen on the American press.

Which has produced the predictable squeals from Carr and the billionaire Murdoch family’s Fox “News” propaganda channel, and from Whiskey Pete Hegseth, giggling about how things are going to change when David Ellison takes over CNN.

Threats notwithstanding, our elected officials need to step up now to defend both the First Amendment, the Emoluments Clause, and the lives of our men and women in uniform.

Even lacking subpoena power, Democratic leadership should convene shadow hearings to investigate this possible double-dealing that’s already killed Americans and threatens to plunge the entire world into flames.

At the very least, they should spend a few weeks holding public, on‑the‑record hearings into whether this Iran war is being steered from Riyadh, Jerusalem, and Kushner’s investment firm instead of the Pentagon.

With their Benghazi spectacle that followed the death of four Americans, Republicans taught us that when our officers and enlisted people die abroad, Congress has a duty to drag every decision‑maker before the cameras; Democrats should apply that same standard now, and ask under oath whether Trump, Kushner, and their billionaire partners are profiting from a war they helped ignite.

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HRW

:{Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (center) heads a meeting of the Council of Economic Affairs and Development in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on May 29, 2018. The council is responsible for oversight of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Investors and businesses looking to cash in on Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth and economic diversification plans should be wary of its Public Investment Fund’s (PIF) ultimate decision maker – the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The crown prince has consolidated unprecedented state economic power under his sole decision-making through the PIF, with few, if any, constraints on how he deploys his nation’s wealth, our research has found.

This mercurial autocrat effectively has singular, unfettered control of what may soon be the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world. And while the Saudis haven’t had any international scandals lately — the crown prince hasn’t ordered any journalists dismembered or locked up princes in the Ritz until they turned over their businesses in at least a few years — there is immense risk in the crown prince’s personalized control over nearly a trillion dollars in Saudi sovereign wealth.

For decades, Human Rights Watch has documented how a centrally controlled revenue stream, such as oil, can exacerbate a ruler’s worst abuses and misrule by providing the financial resources for enrichment without accountability and transparency. Poor economic decision-making, mismanagement, corruption and human rights abuses thrive. There is no more consequential example than Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

Mohammed bin Salman uses the fund to pursue his interests, with few, if any, guardrails. The crown prince is the chairman of the PIF’s board of directors; and he chairs the body that oversees the board, the Council on Economic and Development Affairs. He is also the country’s prime minister, which grants him the authority to appoint all board members with no oversight. His is the only name needed on the PIF’s organizational chart.

The crown prince’s authority over the PIF is mirrored by a broader consolidation of his power over the country’s political and security institutions.

Major PIF investments have involved unilateral decision-making by the crown prince, despite protests from the board of directors and professional advisers. The crown prince has circumvented governance procedures and gone straight to the king when the board opposes his decision. But that may rarely happen because many board members were appointed to their current positions after King Salman succeeded to the throne and his son assumed increasing power; and many are close personal confidants of Mohammed bin Salman.

Some of his decisions are questionable. In early 2020, the crown prince wanted the PIF to buy specific stocks as the markets plummeted during the onset of the global pandemic. In an interview, Yasir al-Rumayyan, the PIF’s governor, said that the board of directors voted against the move because it was seen as too risky but that the crown prince “took the matter to the King” who issued a decree, allowing the crown prince to bypass the PIF’s governance framework.

We have also documented rights abuses directly tied to the PIF, raising serious concerns for investors with any possible links to abuses in Saudi Arabia. Documents show that in 2017, one of Mohammed bin Salman’s advisers ordered al-Rumayyan, then the Fund’s supervisor, to transfer 20 companies that were captured as part of the “anti-corruption campaign” directly into the Fund. There is a risk that these companies were seized from their owners without due process.

The documents also indicated that one of the companies transferred to the PIF was Sky Prime Aviation, a charter jet company that owned the two planes used in 2018 by Saudi agents to travel to Istanbul, where they murdered Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was critical of the Saudi government.

Given that there are few if any domestic checks and balances on the crown price’s decision-making power over the PIF, money managers and executives need to make sure that they carry out their own extensive, thorough, and independent human rights due diligence and other protections before engaging in any business activities with the PIF. Ultimately, firms should refrain from doing business with the PIF if they conclude that serious adverse rights impacts are unavoidable.

November 20, 2024 Report

The Man Who Bought The World

Rights Abuses Linked to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Its Chairman, Mohammed bin Salman

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GGL 12 25

Human Rights Watch

https://www.hrw.org › news › 2024 › 12 › 18 › saudi-arabias-sovereign-wealth-fund-another-way-mbs-consolidate-his-power

Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Wealth Fund Is Another Way for MBS to ...

Dec 18, 2024Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Wealth Fund Is Another Way for MBS to Consolidate His Power The mercurial autocrat has singular control over what may soon be the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world.

'Just a matter of time' before Trump family business seals Saudi deal

an 12 25

forbes

Here’s Everyone Who Attended Trump's Dinner With Saudi's Prime Minister

Billionaire attendees worth a combined $719 billion, as well as other business executives and the world’s highest-paid athlete, were among the high-profile attendees at President Donald Trump’s black-tie dinner for Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on Tuesday night.

President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are seated for a dinner in the East Room of the White House.

Key Facts

Some of the world’s richest people —including Elon Musk and Steve Schwarzmanof Blackstone—were among the attendees.

Billionaire Jensen Huang and Lisa Su, the CEOs of chip giants Nvidia and AMD, attended months after both companies signed deals to supply their advanced semiconductors to AI company Humain—which the Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF owns.

Tech and finance billionaires Marc Benioff of Salesforce, Brian Armstrong of Coinbase, Tim Cook of Apple and Vlad Tenev of Robinhood also attended.

David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance Corporation and son of mega billionaire Larry Ellison, was there amid reports the Saudi sovereign fund could partly fund his company’s bid to acquire rival Warner Bros. Discovery (the company has since denied the claim).

Also among the invitees were General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser and Chevron CEO Mike Wirth.

Cristiano Ronaldo, who signed the world’s most expensive soccer contract with Saudi soccer club Al-Nassr two years ago and has surpassed $1 billion in career earnings, lended his star power to the dinner.

Have Musk And Trump Made Up?

It’s unclear. The dinner was the first time Musk has been at the White House since he left his role as a special government employee heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in May. He then publicly feuded with Trump, but his attendance is the latest sign pointing to thawing tension between them as Musk’s threat to start his breakaway “America Party” appears stalled.

What Do We Know About Ronaldo’s Ties To Saudi Arabia?

Ronaldo, the legendary soccer star who tops the list of all-time goal scorers, was at the dinner. In 2023, Ronaldo joined Saudi soccer club Al-Nassr on a record €200 million ($231 million) per year deal, amid Riyadh’s push to become a global sporting hub. Al-Nassr is primarily owned by PIF, and the Saudi Crown Prince serves as the fund’s chairman. Earlier this year, Ronaldo signed an extension deal that will keep the 40-year-old at the club till 2027. He ranked number one on Forbes’ list of the World’s Highest Paid Athletes of 2025, and he is projected to earn an estimated $275 million this year.

What Did Trump Say About Ronaldo?

In his speech at the dinner, Trump mentioned Ronaldo by name and said, “My son is a big fan of Ronaldo. And Baron got to meet him, and I think he respects his father a little bit more now, just the fact that I introduced you.”

Who Else Was At The Dinner?

FIFA President Gianni Infantino was also present after cultivating ties with both Trump and the Saudi crown prince over the past few years. Infantino has defended his relationship with the president, calling it “crucial,” and has played down concerns that Trump’s immigration crackdown will affect international fan attendance at the FIFA World Cup in the U.S. next year. The FIFA boss has also defended the decision to award Saudi Arabia the hosting rights for the 2034 World Cup, despite accusations that FIFA was enabling sportswashing.

Forbes Valuations

Musk is the richest person in the world with an almost $468 billion net worth as of Wednesday, according to Forbes estimates. Two of the other attendees are also among the world's 100 richest people: No. 8 Huang ($161.6 billion) and No. 36 Steve Schwarzman ($43.9 billion). Karp is worth $15.2 billion, Armstrong is worth $11.2 billion, Benioff is worth $8.6 billion, Tenev is worth $6.5 billion and Tim cook has a $2.6 billion valuation. Su, the only female executive in attendance, is worth $1.5 billion.

Soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo, right, listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a dinner for Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the East Room of the White House.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su were among several high profile tech executives at the dinner.

Elon Musk sits during a dinner with President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Other prominent attendees included Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison and Dell CEO Michael Dell.

Other meetings

Gulf states emissary

In August 2016, Donald Trump Jr. had a meeting with an emissary representing Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates. The envoy offered help to the Trump presidential campaign.^[107] The meeting included Lebanese-American businessman George Nader, Joel Zamel, an Israeli specialist in social media manipulation, and American businessman Erik Prince.^{[108][107][109][110}]

Los Angeles based Emirati real-estate developer, Rashid al-Malik, who is close to Prince Mohammed and one of Trump's aides, is being investigated for running an illegal influence scheme. A whistle-blower has also accused the UAE of using cyberespionage techniques from former American operatives to spy on US citizens.^[111]

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accusations are confession/ projection:

an 1 24

Trump took millions from China, Saudi Arabia, other foreign governments as POTUS: report - Alternet.org

badash

while serving as President of the United States, Donald Trump’s businesses accepted millions of dollars from numerous foreign governments, including China and Saudi Arabia – the very acts House Republicans have baselessly alleged Joe Biden performed as Vice President and as a private citizen before being elected President, despite having provided no actual proof.

“Donald J. Trump’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his presidency, according to new documents released by House Democrats on Thursday that show how much he received from overseas transactions while he was in the White House, most of it from China,” The New York Times reported Thursday. The paper calls it “concrete evidence that the former president engaged in the kind of conduct that House Republicans have labored, so far unsuccessfully, to prove that President Biden did as they work to build an impeachment case against him.”

The Wall Street Journal adds that the “report, underpinned by documents provided to House investigators by the accounting firm Mazars USA, offers a fuller picture of how Trump’s businesses benefited during his presidency as foreign officials may have tried to curry favor with Trump.”

In a break with tradition, as President, Donald Trump’s first foreign trip was to Saudi Arabia (video below), in May of 2017. One month earlier, Trump met with China’s President Xi at Mar-a-Lago. Ivanka Trump received patents from China that same day.

The 156-page report, “White House for Sale: How Princes, Prime Ministers, and Premiers Paid Off President Trump,” was produced by the House Democrats on the Oversight Committee under Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a former constitutional law professor. He calls the findings and conclusions in the report “astounding,” and says “they demand urgent action by the Congress and by the American people.”

The Journal offers staggering details from the report.

“Hundreds of pages of expenses seen by the Journal include at least $210,000 in real estate and lodging fees by Saudi Arabia in 2018, the same year Trump publicly doubted U.S. intelligence assessments that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi,” the WSJ writes. “And a few months earlier, a Saudi delegation paid $2,000 for coffee table flowers and towers of cookies at the same hotel.”

“Newly disclosed receipts also show that Hainan Airlines Holding, which then had connections to China’s leadership, incurred $195,662 in charges at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas during a 14-month period beginning days before Trump was elected in 2016,” the Journal adds. “Malaysia paid for a $10,000-per-night suite in Trump’s Washington hotel in September 2017 for then-Prime Minister Najib Razak while he was under a U.S. investigation for his role in a multibillion-dollar corruption scandal that ultimately helped topple his government. Malaysia’s spending caused a 70% jump in average nightly room revenue at Trump’s Washington hotel compared with other nights that month, the report said.”

Ranking Member Raskin writes in the report: “By elevating his personal financial interests and the policy priorities of corrupt foreign powers over the American public interest, former President Trump violated both the clear commands of the Constitution and the careful precedent set and observed by every previous Commander-in-Chief.”

“Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution forbids the President to accept money payments or gifts ‘of any kind whatever’ from foreign governments and monarchs unless he obtains ‘the Consent of the Congress’ to do so,” he observes. “Yet Donald Trump, while holding the office of president, used his business entities to pocket millions of dollars from foreign states and royalty and never once went to Congress to seek its consent. This report sets forth the records showing foreign government money—and all the spoils from royals we can find—pouring into hotels and buildings that the President continued to own during his presidency, all in direct violation of the Constitutional prohibition.”

Watch video of Trump being honored by Saudi Arabia during his first foreign trip below or at this link.

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massacre

https://www.alternet.org/like-fields-report-says-saudi-border-guards-killed-hundreds-of-migrants/

WTF?! not 1st suckup? 2024?

an 1 23

This is unacceptable': Mike Pompeo uses new book to criticize murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi

Maya Boddie

January 24, 2023

Former Secretary of State and potential 2024 presidential candidate Mike Pompeo _{heavily criticized}_ Jamal Khashoggi in his upcoming book, NBC reports.

Khashoggi, who was based in the U.S., was known to...

an 10 22

in the United States, gas prices were decreasing during the summer months — much to the relief of the Biden Administration. But with the 2022 midterms less than a month away, Biden officials and Democratic strategists are not happy to see gas prices increasing once again.

Journalist Ken Klippenstein, in an article published by The Intercept on October 11, emphasizes that higher gas prices are politically advantageous for the government of Saudi Arabia — which would prefer to have Republicans rather than Democrats in control of the United States’ federal government.

“When, just one month before midterm elections, Saudi Arabia announced it would be slashing oil production by 2 million barrels a day, White House officials called it a ‘hostile act’ and said the (Biden) Administration was ‘reevaluating’ the Saudi relationship,” Klippenstein explains. “It was the kind of bellicose language officialdom virtually never uses to describe the oil-rich monarchy, whose vast wealth has bought it enormous influence in Washington. Congressional Democrats facing reelection amid soaring gas prices were similarly incensed.”

Klippenstein continues, “Usually, Capitol Hill will trot out bloodless language of ‘deep concern’ in response to the kingdom’s myriad human rights abuses, but this time, congressional Democrats struck back, vowing to block weapons sales and even taking the unprecedented step of introducing legislation to withdraw U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The bill’s sponsors linked their efforts to the war in Ukraine, pointing out how keeping oil prices high results in a windfall of profit to bankroll Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion.”

According to the Brookings Institution’s Bruce Riedel, Saudi members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) favor Republicans over Democrats.

Reidel told The Intercept, “The Saudis are working to get Trump reelected and for the MAGA Republicans to win the midterms. Higher oil prices will undermine the Democrats.”

When OPEC was founded back in 1960, it had five members: one in South America (Venezuela) and the other four in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait). All of those countries are still members, and other countries ranging from Libya to Angola have joined OPEC along the way. But the most prominent and influential OPEC member continues to be Saudi Arabia, whose Crowd Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) had an “affinity for Trump,” Klippenstein notes.

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California told The Intercept, “There’s no doubt that the Saudi-led OPEC oil production cuts are a strategic effort to hurt Americans at the pump and undermine our work to tackle rising costs.”

Klippenstein points out that the alliance between Trumpistas and MBS did not end when Trump left the White House and moved to Mar-a-Lago on January 20, 2021.

“Just six months after leaving the White House, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former top White House adviser, won a $2 billion investment from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund at the request of MBS, who overrode the objections of Saudi officials,” Klippenstein notes. “Kushner would later flaunt his influence with the Saudis in a pitch to investors for his investment firm Affinity Partners, according to a pitch deck obtained by The Intercept in April. And Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s firm, Liberty Strategic Capital, raised $1 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. Experts suggest that MBS’ oil production cut is a targeted attempt to hurt the Democrats’ electoral prospects.”

Trita Parsi, who serves as executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told The Intercept, “This is MBS’ October surprise. This is his election interference. It forces Biden to make a choice: Will he protect America’s democracy and Democratic lawmakers in Congress, or will he triple down on a flawed gamble that says that the U.S. has no choice but to acquiesce to Saudi Arabia to prevent Riyadh from aligning with Russia?”

thom an 8 22

...

It adds, detailing Trump’s specific obstruction of justice crimes:

These actions ranged from efforts to remove the Special Counsel and to reverse the effect of the Attorney General’s recusal; to the attempted use of official power to limit the scope of the investigation; to direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony.

Viewing the acts collectively can help to illuminate their significance. For example, the President’s direction to McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed was followed almost immediately by his direction to Lewandowski to tell the Attorney General to limit the scope of the Russia investigation to prospective election-interference only—a temporal connection that suggests that both acts were taken with a related purpose with respect to the investigation.

There are, after all, _{credible assertions}_ that when Trump was elected, members of Russian intelligence and Putin’s inner circle were literally partying in Moscow, explicitly celebrating a victory they truly believed they helped make happen.

In his first months in office, Trump _{outed an Israeli spy}_ to the Russian Ambassador, resulting in MOSAD having to “burn” (relocate, change identity of) that spy. That, in turn, prompted the CIA to worry that a longtime US spy buried deep in the Kremlin was similarly vulnerable to Trump handing him over to Putin.

As CNN _{noted}_ when the story leaked two years later:

The source was considered the highest level source for the US inside the Kremlin, high up in the national security infrastructure, according to the source familiar with the matter and a former senior intelligence official.

According to CNN’s sources, the spy had access to Putin and could even provide images of documents on the Russian leader’s desk.

The CIA concluded that the risk Trump had burned the spy was so great that, at massive loss to US intelligence abilities that may have helped forestall the invasion of Ukraine, we _{pulled the spy out of Russia in 2017}_.

Similarly, when they met in Helsinki, Trump and Putin talked in private for several hours and Trump ordered his translators’ notes destroyed; there is also concern that much of their conversation was done out of the hearing of the US’s translator (Putin is also_{fluent}_ in English and German) who may have been relegated to a distant part of the rather large room in which they met.

Things were picking up in 2019, as Putin was planning his invasion of Ukraine while Trump was preparing for the 2020 election.

On July 31, Trump had another private conversation with Putin. The White House _{told}_ Congress and the press that they discussed “wildfires” and “trade between the nations.” No droids in this car…
The following week, on August 2nd, The Daily Beast’sBetsy Swan _{reported}_ that Trump had just asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a list of all its employees (including all our “spies”) who had worked there more than 90 days, and the request had intelligence officials experiencing “_{disquiet}_.”
Within a year, The New York Times_{ran a story}_ with the headline: “Captured, Killed or Compromised: C.I.A. Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants.” The CIA then alerted spies around the world that their identities had probably been compromised, apparently by Donald Trump himself.

Also in 2019, when the international press verified that Putin was paying the Taliban a bounty to kill American service members in Afghanistan (and 4 had died as a result), Trump refused to demand the practice stop, a possible sign that Putin ran him, not the other way around.

As The New York Times _{noted}_ at the time:

Mr. Trump defended himself by denying the Times report that he had been briefed on the intelligence... But leading congressional Democrats and some Republicans demanded a response to Russia that, according to officials, the administration has yet to authorize.

Instead of stopping Putin, Trump shut down every US airbase in Afghanistan except one (there were about a dozen), _{crippling}_ incoming President Biden’s ability to extract US assets from the country in an orderly fashion.

In July 2019, Trump had conversations with five foreign leaders during and just before a visit to Mar-a-Lago; they included Putin and the Emir of Qatar.

In one of those conversations, according to a high-level US Intelligence source, Trump made “promises” to a “world leader” that were so alarming it provoked a national security scramble across multiple agencies.

As The Washington Post noted in an article _{titled}_ “Trump’s communications with foreign leader are part of whistleblower complaint that spurred standoff between spy chief and Congress":

Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determined that the complaint [against Trump] was credible and troubling enough to be considered a matter of ‘urgent concern,’ a legal threshold that requires notification of congressional oversight committees.

Along his journey toward converting America into a full-blown oligarchy (as I detail in _{*The Hidden History of American Oligarchy: Reclaiming Our Democracy from the Ruling Class*}_), Trump has picked up quite a few democracy-skeptical allies.

As early as 2018, for example, Senator Rand Paul _{made a solo trip}_ to Moscow to personally hand-deliver a private note from Trump to Putin. Its contents are still unknown.

Senator Paul has also consistently taken Trump’s side with regard to the 2020 election and, when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago this month, responded with a call for the _{repeal of the Espionage Act}_. Perhaps he had ambitious plans for a role in the Trump administration after the planned end of American democracy?

With that backstory, consider more contemporary events to see if they fit together.

In January of last year Trump stole and moved to Florida information that, multiple sources _{assert}_, would reveal the identities of many of our spies, as well as our nuclear plans and capabilities.

Three months later, in March of 2021, Jared Kushner filed papers showing that his brand new investment company — _{against the advice}_ of the Saudi government but at MBS’s order — had received over $2 billion from the Kingdom.

It’s still unknown if or how much money the Kingdom gave to Trump himself, presumably through the dark offshore accounts common among billionaires like Trump.

This was not the first time Kushner had apparently altered US foreign policy or shared valuable US secrets with Middle East players in exchange for large quantities of cash that flowed directly to him or other members of the Trump family.

_{As investigative reporter Vicky Ward notes in the most recent post on }__{*Vicky Ward Investigates*}__{ on Substack:}_

Kushner was struggling with the ticking time bomb of a $1.8 billion mortgage on 666 Fifth Avenue that would come due in February of 2019—a debt no domestic buyer was interested in. Not even the Chinese or Qataris wanted it. … Kushner desperately needed a bail-out for his troubled building…and the clock was ticking.

Then, in the spring of 2018, two things happened within weeks. First, the U.S. withdrew their support of the blockade of Qatar, leading the Saudis and Emiratis to lift it.

Then, Brookfield, a Canadian real estate investment trust whose largest outside shareholder is the Qatari government, bailed out the Kushners in a deal that has real estate moguls rolling their eyes to this day: A 99-year lease paid upfront on a building that was bleeding money.

Which brings us back, again, to last year, just after Trump’s failed January 6th attempt to overthrow the US government.

About six months after the Saudis gave Kushner that second batch of billions, we learned that for several months “dozens” of American spies and agents had been “captured or killed” around the world. As _{The Washington Post reported}_ on October 5, 2021:

Top American counterintelligence officials warned every C.I.A. station and base around the world last week about troubling numbers of informants recruited from other countries to spy for the United States being captured or killed, people familiar with the matter said.

Is it possible that all these different data points are part of one whole?

That Trump had a plan, worked out with Putin, MBS, a few dozen high administration officials, and a large handful of Republicans in the House and Senate, to overthrow our government and establish an oligarchic system like what is currently in place in Russia and that Fox “News” _{showcased}_ in Hungary? ...

https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/donald-trump-sportswashing-saudi-arabia/

4 22 an

after his father-in-law left the White House, Jared Kushner got a $2 billion golden parachute—from the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Kushner predictably started a private equity firm despite his lack of experience in private equity, and went to the main Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), asking for an “investment.”

The professionals in charge of screening possible investments for the PIF raised a series of objections only to be overruled days later by the fund’s board, which is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom Kushner became close during his time as a senior White House adviser.

The objections to investing in Kushner’s private equity firm, Affinity Partners, included “’the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management’; the possibility that the kingdom would be responsible for ‘the bulk of the investment and risk’; due diligence on the fledgling firm’s operations that found them ‘unsatisfactory in all aspects’; a proposed asset management fee that ‘seems excessive’; and ‘public relations risks’ from Mr. Kushner’s prior role as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, former President Donald J. Trump, according to minutes of the panel’s meeting last June 30,” *The New York Times*reports.

The reason given internally was that Kushner was worth the risk despite his inexperience and potential public relations problems, in order to “capitalize on the capabilities of Affinity’s founders’ deep understanding of different government policies and geopolitical systems.” That’s a lot of words when you could just say “buying access and influence.”

As a measure of how much the eventual bin Salman-led decision to hand over $2 billion to Kushner was driven by relationships, Steven Mnuchin, the former Trump treasury secretary, also started aprivate equity firm and went to Saudi Arabia asking for money.He got $1 billion despite having relevant experience in the field. Kushner is also getting a higher asset management fee from the PIF than Mnuchin is.

Few other investors have bought what Kushner was selling. According to public filings, the main fund at Affinity Partners had just $2.5 billion invested. It sounds like he’s basically owned by Saudi Arabia at this point. But then, he did a lot to earn this kind of loyalty when he was in a position to do so.

In a side note on the brokenness of the traditional media, check out this framing: “Ethics experts say that such a deal creates the appearance of potential payback for Mr. Kushner’s actions in the White House — or of a bid for future favor if Mr. Trump seeks and wins another presidential term in 2024.”

Guys. You really don’t need ethics experts to tell you that. Everyone can see it. Nor do you need to include the waffling “the appearance of.” It’s blatantly corrupt, even if we don’t know if it’s more of a thank you for Jared’s help providing cover on the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, or more of a down payment on future services should Trump make it back to the White House. And it’s business as usual for all of Team Trump.

report out no sanction on prince

https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/jamal-khashoggi/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/prince-of-saudi-arabia/

roger salon

One year ago, three U.S. servicemen were killed in a terrorist attack at Pensacola Naval Air Station by an officer in the Royal Saudi Air Force, who had been coordinating with al-Qaida operatives for years while completing a pilot training program at the base. Earlier this month the three service members were posthumously honored with the Purple Heart. Their families, however, are still waiting for President Trump to make good on what he had assured them the day after their children were killed: That he would get to the bottom of the attack, and that the Saudi royal family — specifically, King Salman himself, the desert monarchy's absolute ruler — would take care of them.

They are also still waiting for Trump himself, or anyone in the administration, to contact them.

Now the Trump administration is reportedly weighing whether to grant Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman legal immunity from a federal lawsuit accusing him of targeting a former intelligence officer for assassination.The decision could also lead to the dismissal of other cases against MBS, including one accusing him of directing the murder and dismemberment of dissidentjournalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

The move, however, could also thwart possible legal action on the part of the Pensacola victims, who may be covered under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which gives federal courts jurisdiction over a foreign state's support for acts of terrorism against U.S. targets, even if the foreign county is not a designated state sponsor of terrorism.

Hanging over all this is the recently renewed possibility that members of the Saudi Royal family could be called as witnesses in a lawsuit brought against the kingdom by families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.

The Pensacola attacker, Mohammad al-Shamrani, was later revealed to have been in regular contact since 2015 with what the FBI described as "dangerous operatives" in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). That predates by two years his 2017 arrival at the U.S. on a special visa for flight training at NAS Pensacola, the same base where some of the 9/11 hijackers listed an address.

About a week before the attack, al-Shamrani visited the 9/11 memorial in Manhattan, and on Sept. 11, 2019, just months before the shooting, he posted a social media message saying that "the countdown has begun." While officials have not gone so far to say the attacker was directed by al-Qaida, they have said his ties to the group were "significant." No foreign terrorist organization has successfully directed a deadly attack in the U.S. since 2001.

The attack lasted about 15 minutes before security forces killed the shooter. In that time he shot to death Ensign Joshua Watson, Petty Officer 3rd Class Mohammed Haitham and Petty Officer 3rd Class Cameron Walter, and wounded eight other service members, using a semiautomatic handgun with about 180 rounds of ammunition.

The morning after the shooting, President Trump told reporters as he departed for a fundraiser at another location in Florida that King Salman was "very, very devastated" about the shooting, and the royal family would help the affected families "very greatly." The king, Trump said, would involve himself in the effort personally.

"I spoke with the King of Saudi Arabia. They are devastated in Saudi Arabia," the president said. "We're finding out what took place, whether it's one person or a number of people. And the king will be involved in taking care of families and loved ones. He feels very strongly. He's very, very devastated by what happened and what took place. Likewise the crown prince. They are devastated by what took place in Pensacola. And I think they're going to help out the families very greatly."

"But, right now, they send their condolences," Trump continued. "And, as you know, I've sent my condolences. It's a very shocking thing. And we'll find out — we'll get to the bottom of it very quickly."

A family member of one of the victims told Salon that neither country had lived up to its promises. "No one from the Saudi government has reached out to any of the families," this person said. "No one from the White House has ever called us. No one has been held accountable. We're still waiting."

The Navy released its investigation in November. The heavily redacted report concluded that the attacker had self-radicalized, but a synopsis added that "the organizational environment inherent in the aviation pipeline" played a role, and that conditions to an extent were little different from what could lead to similar actions from "our own Sailors and civilian personnel." (The report notes "an adverse microclimate for all students" where superiors subjected foreign students to "derogatory and sometimes abusive comments as well as humiliating public reprimands" — such an incident in which an instructor referred to al-Shamrani as "Pornstache.")

A month after the attack, Attorney General Bill Barr announced that nearly two dozen other Saudis in the U.S. for military training were being deported for having anti-American or "jihadist" content on their social media. Seventeen of them had also reportedly come in contact with child pornography.

However, the unclassified sections of the 267-page Navy report contain just one passing mention of AQAP. At one point the report reveals that investigators had not reviewed the shooter's responses to security questions on his visa application: "The security portion contains 55 yes or no questions pertaining to such areas as terrorism, espionage, illegal activity, immigration violations, felony convictions, etc. The submitted A-2 visa application was not reviewed for derogatory material as part of this investigation."

The document contrasts sharply with FBI Director Christopher Wray's press conference six months earlier.

"The new evidence shows that al-Shamrani had radicalized not after training here in the U.S. but at least as far back as 2015, and that he had been connecting and associating with a number of dangerous AQAP operatives ever since," Wray said. "It shows that al-Shamrani described a desire to learn about flying years ago, around the same time he talked about attending the Saudi Air Force Academy in order to carry out what he called a 'special operation.' And he then pressed his plans forward, joining the Air Force and bringing his plot here — to America."

Wray said that the attacker associated with AQAP while he lived in Texas and Florida, and discussed his plans and tactics directly with the group, "taking advantage of the information he acquired here, to assess how many people he could try to kill."

"He was meticulous in his planning," Wray said, adding: "He wasn't just coordinating with them about planning and tactics — he was helping the organization make the most it could out of his murders. And he continued to confer with his AQAP associates right until the end, the very night before he started shooting."

In the days after that attack, Trump, offered a conspicuous non-response, strongly out of character for someone who has often been among the first public figures to politicize a terrorist attack apparently carried out by a Muslim. Early in his presidency he falsely denounced a casino robbery in the Philippines as an act of terrorism, a knee-jerk mistake that reportedly _{drew laughs}_ in the White House situation room. He once appeared to invent a terrorist attack in Sweden that had not happened, and then _{doubled down on it}_.

But the president refused to call the al-Qaida-inspired attack on U.S. troops an act of terrorism, let alone "radical Islamic terrorism." (Barr called it a terrorist attack the next month, following an preliminary investigation.) The closest Trump came was a retweet of a TV interview of Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., using the term.

(The president, whose retweets are _{a cesspool of fringe-right and white supremacist accounts}_, often uses the technique to create a layer of deniability between himself and the tweet's actual claim. "That was a retweet," he once _{said}_, after sharing a tweet that connected the Clintons to the death in custody of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. "That wasn't from me. That was from [the original account].")

Trump's own tweet after the attack, however, only said he'd spoken on the phone with King Salman, who expressed "sincere condolences":

King Salman of Saudi Arabia just called to express his sincere condolences and give his sympathies to the families and friends of the warriors who were killed and wounded in the attack that took place in Pensacola, Florida. The King said that the Saudi people are greatly angered by the barbaric actions of the shooter, and that this person in no way shape or form represents the feelings of the Saudi people who love the American people.

By contrast, 11 months prior, Trump boasted on Twitter about avenging al-Qaida's 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, claiming that "our work against al Qaeda continues."

"Our GREAT MILITARY has delivered justice for the heroes lost and wounded in the cowardly attack on the USS Cole. We have just killed the leader of that attack, Jamal al-Badawi," Trump wrote. "Our work against al Qaeda continues. We will never stop in our fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism!"

Two months after Pensacola, the U.S. confirmed that it had killed the AQAP leader who claimed responsibility for the attack, in a drone strike in Yemen. Trump had already alluded to the assassination in several tweets, but he still had not contacted any of the families robbed of their loved ones in an attack on his own soldiers at Pensacola.

"Where was our president?" asked the family member who spoke to Salon. "Where was the man that refuses to lose and loves America?"

For whatever reason, Trump's fight stops at the gates of the Saudi royal palace. For instance, the president took the kingdom's side when it blockaded Qatar, home to a critical U.S. military base. He has defended the country's continued bombing of Yemen, which has created a humanitarian disaster, and vetoed an overwhelmingly bipartisan bill to halt weapons sales as that tragedy escalated.

Weeks before the Pensacola shooting, CNN reported that the State Department and Pentagon were deploying teams to Saudi Arabia to investigate the network's reports that, only months after Trump jammed a multibillion-dollar Saudi weapons deal through Congress, U.S.-made weapons were being transferred to groups including al-Qaida fighters in Yemen, in violation of the sales agreement. The State Department said that the Saudis' "continued insufficient responses" were muddling the probe.

(The joint U.S.-Saudi military training program at Pensacola NAS is a part of the weapons package.)

Trump's deference to the Saudis came to the forefront the year before, in October 2018, when a hit team of Saudi nationals dismembered Khashoggi— a Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident — in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. U.S. intelligence _{concluded}_ with its highest degree of certainty that Crown Prince Mohammed had personally directed the murder. (In October 2019, MBS _{took "full responsibility"}_ for the killing, but denied any advance knowledge.) In a rare moment of bipartisanship, Congress condemned Saudi Arabia and passed legislation blocking arms sales to the kingdom — sales Trump had bragged about repeatedly.

Trump disputed his intelligence community's conclusion on the Khashoggi murder, and the New York Times _{reported}_ that Jared Kushner advised the president to ignore the bipartisan outrage and support Prince Mohammed until it passed. A few weeks after the murder, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Saudi Arabia, where in a closed-door meeting he reportedly _{passed the Crown Prince}_ a "road map" meant to help him navigate the scandal.

According to a _{CNN report}_ last year, Pompeo was reportedly one of only two men in the room with Trump — the other being former national security adviser John Bolton — during the president's post-Khashoggi phone call with Saudi leaders. The transcript of that call was immediately sequestered.

"Officials who ordinarily would have been given access to a rough transcript of the conversation never saw one, according to one source," CNN reported. "Instead, a transcript was never circulated at all, which the source said was highly unusual."

Additionally, CNN reported that there were "no transcripts made of the phone conversations between Trump and the Saudi king or crown prince to prevent leaks." The officials said the radical step didn't stem from concerns about classified information, but instead seemed designed to shield Trump from potential political consequences.

The White House, of course, was not the only party capable of creating transcripts or recording those calls. Whoever else might have them — which would include various parties on the Saudi side or any intelligence agencies that might have intercepted the call — would have devastating blackmail material on the outgoing president. That would also include the Saudis themselves.

"They give us a lot of jobs. They give us a lot of business," Trump said to explain his non-response to Khashoggi's murder.

Though Trump has in recent years denied having financial ties to Saudi Arabia, he and a number of people close to him have had many business dealings with the kingdom. At a 2015 campaign rally, candidate Trump said, "Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much." He also _{said}_ that he likes doing deals with the Saudis because "Saudi Arabia pays cash."

In May 2017, Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner flew to Saudi Arabia on the president's first international visit. On that trip, Trump announced a $110 billion arms deal with the Saudis — a number since proved to be wildly overstated — as part of an even larger _{$350 billion investment deal}_, in which the royal family pledged to invest $20 billion in a $40 billion U.S. infrastructure fund.

Kushner is literally in debt to the company that _{manages}_ this fund — the Blackstone Group — which over the last six years has loaned Kushner Companies, long _{plagued}_ by financial woes, more than _{$400 million}_ to fund a number of deals. Kushner also has _{ties}_ to Tom Barrack, who went in with Blackstone on the fund. _{A 2019 congressional report}_ alleged that Barrack urged the Trump administration to share nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia while simultaneously going in with the kingdom on a company that would benefit from the new policy.

In 2018, The New York Times reported that the Saudis have been ingratiating themselves to Kushner for years. In October 2017, a year before Khashoggi's murder, Kushner made an unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia, where he reportedly gave Prince Mohammed a list of Saudi dissidents that came directly from the President's Daily Brief, one of the U.S. government's most sensitive intelligence documents. Six months later, MBS visited Trump in Washington, but a sizable portion of the Saudi entourage stayed in Manhattan at the Trump International Hotel. The Washington Post's David Farenthold _{reported}_ that the Saudis' five-day stay yielded a profit for the quarter:

After two years of decline, revenue from room rentals went up 13 percent in the first three months of 2018. What caused the uptick at President Trump's flagship hotel in New York? One major factor: "a last-minute visit to New York by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia," wrote [the hotel's] general manager Prince A. Sanders in a May 15 letter, which was obtained by The Washington Post...."Due to our close industry relationships,' he wrote, 'we were able to accommodate many of the accompanying travelers."

And in the summer of 2016, weeks after Trump claimed the GOP nomination, Donald Trump Jr. met in Trump Tower with George Nader — an adviser to Prince Mohammed — along with a representative from an Israeli psy-ops firm. _{The New York Times reported}_ that Nader told Trump Jr. that the Saudi and United Arab Emirates royal families were "eager to help his father win election as president." It's not clear what, if anything, came of this, but Nader later cut the owner of the Israeli firm a check for up to $2 million. One explanation for the payment, according to the Times, concerned "an elaborate presentation about the significance of social media campaigning to Mr. Trump's victory."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

house Foreign Affairs chairman slams Trump’s State Department for its ‘indifference to civilian casualties’ in Gulf arms deal

Alex HendersonSeptember 16, 2020

In May 2019, President Donald Trump made an emergency declaration in order to complete the sale of more than $8 million worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab…

linick IG

update report

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/fired-state-department-official-says-he-was-pressured-to-drop-probe-of-trumps-shady-saudi-arms-deal/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/how-a-behind-the-scenes-bare-knuckle-brawl-shaped-us-foreign-policy-under-trump/

It was a bare-knuckle brawl of the first order. It took place in Washington, D.C., and it resulted in a KO. The winners? Lobbyists and the defense industry. The losers? Us. And odds on, you didn’t even know that it happened. Few Americans did, which is why it’s worth telling the story of howSaudi, Emirati, and Qatari money flooded the nation’s capital and, in the process, American policy went down for the count.

The fight began three years ago this month. Sure, the pugilists hadn’t really liked each other that much before then, but what happened in 2017 was the foreign-policy equivalent of a sucker punch. On the morning of June 5th, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, and Bahrain announced that they were severing diplomatic ties with Qatar, the small but wealthy emirate in the Persian Gulf, and establishing a land, air, and sea blockade of their regional rival, purportedly because of its ties to terrorism.

The move stunned the Qataris, who responded in ways that would later become familiar during the Covid-19 pandemic — by emptying supermarket shelves and hoarding essentials they worried would quickly run out. Their initial fears were not unwarranted, as their neighbors,Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, were even reported to be planning to launch a military invasion of Qatar in the weeks to come (one that would be thwarted only by the strong objections of Donald Trump’s then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson).

To make sense of this now three-year-old conflict, which turned aspects of American policy in the Middle East ranging from the war in Yemen to the more than 10,000 American military personnel stationed in Qatar into political footballs, means refocusing on Washington and the extraordinary influence operations the Saudis, Emiratis, and Qataris ran there. That, in turn, means analyzing Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) documents filed by firms representing all three countries since the spat began. Do that and you’ll come across a no-punches-barred bout of lobbying in the U.S. capital that would have made Rocky envious.

The Saudis Come Out Swinging

The stage had been set for the blockade of Qatar seven months before it began when Donald Trump was elected president. Just as his victory shocked the American public, so it caught many foreign governments off guard. In response, they quickly sought out the services of anyone with ties to the incoming administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. The Saudis and Emiratis were no exception. In 2016, both countries had reported spending a little more than $10 million on FARA registered lobbying firms. By the end of 2017, UAE spending had nearly doubled to $19.5 million, while the Saudi’s had soared to $27.3 million.

In the months following Donald Trump’s November triumph, the Saudis, for instance, added several firms with ties to him or the Republicans to an already sizeable list of companies registered under FARA as representing their interests. For example, they brought on the CGCN Group whose president and chief policy officer, Michael Catanzaro, was on Trump’s transition team and then served in his administration. To court the Republican Congress, they hired the McKeon Group, run by former Republican Representative Buck McKeon, who had previously served as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

And that was just registered foreign agents. A number of actors who had not registered under FARA were actively pushing the Saudi and Emirati agendas, chief among them Elliott Broidy and George Nader. Broidy, a top fundraiser for Trump’s campaign, and Nader, his business partner, already had a wide range of interests in both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. To help secure them, the two men embarked on a campaign to turn the new president and the Republican establishment against Qatar. One result was a Broidy-inspired, UAE-funded anti-Qatar conference hosted in May 2017 by a prominent Washington think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. It conveniently offered Representative Ed Royce (R-CA) a platform to discuss his plans to introduce a bill, HR 2712, that would label Qatar a state sponsor of terrorism. It was to be introduced in the House of Representatives just two days after the conference ended.

Qatar, mind you, had been a U.S. ally in the Middle East and was the home of Al Udeid Air Base, where more than 10,000 American soldiers are still stationed. So that bill represented a striking development in American-Qatari relations and was a clearly traceable result of Saudi and UAE lobbying efforts.

The unregistered influence of players like Broidy and Nader was evidently backed by other FARA-registered Saudi and UAE foreign agents actively pushing the bill. For example, Qorvis Communications, a long-time public relations mouthpiece for the Saudis, circulated a document titled “Qatar’s History of Funding Terrorism and Extremism,” claiming that country was funding Al-Nusra, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other groups. (Not surprisingly, it included a supportive quote from David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.)

While that anti-Qatar crusade was ramping up in Washington, the president himself was being wooed by the Saudi royals in Riyadh on his first official trip abroad. They gave him the literal royal treatment and their efforts appeared to pay off when, just a day after the blockade began, Trump tweeted, “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar — look!”

A week after the imposition of the blockade, the Emirati ambassador to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed calling for Al Udeid Air Base to be moved to the UAE, a development the Qataris feared could open the door for an eventual invasion of their country.

However, this Saudi and Emirati onslaught did not go unanswered.

Qatar Strikes Back

Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, was caught flat-footed by the influence operations of the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates. The year before Donald Trump became president, the Qataris had spent just $2.7 million on lobbying and public relations firms, less than a third of what the Saudis and UAE paid out, according to FARA records. But they now moved swiftly to shore up their country’s image as a crucial American ally. They went on an instant hiring spree, scooping up lobbying and public-relations firms with close ties to Trump and congressional Republicans.Just two days after the blockade began, for instance, they inked adeal with the law firm of former Attorney General John Ashcroft, paying $2.5 million for just its first 90 days of work.

They also quickly obtained the services of Stonington Strategies. Headed by Nick Muzin, who had worked on Trump’s election campaign, the firm promptly set out to court 250 Trump “influencers,” as Julie Bykowicz of theWall Street Journal reported. Among others, Stonington’s campaign sought to woo prominent Fox News personalities Trump paid special attention to like former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. He was paid $50,000 to travel to Qatar just months later.

In September 2017, the Qataris also hired Bluefront Strategies to craft a comprehensive multimedia operation, which was to include commercials on all the major news networks, as well as digital and printed ads in an array of prominent publications, and a “Lift the Blockade” campaign on social media. Meanwhile, ads on Google and YouTube were to highlight the illegality of the blockade and the country’s contributions to fighting terrorism. Bluefront Strategies was to influence public opinion before the next session of the U.N. General Assembly that month. Qatar and its proxies then used the campaign “to target key decision-makers attending the General Assembly, including Trump” to gain support on that most global of stages.

Its agents weren’t just playing defense, either. They actively attacked the Saudi lobby. For example, Barry Bennett of Avenue Strategies, a PR firm they hired, sent a letter to the assistant attorney general for national security accusing Saudi Arabia and the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC) of FARA violations in their funding of an expensive media campaign meant to connect Qatar’s leaders with violent extremism and acts of terror.

Such counterpunches proved remarkably successful. SAPRAC eventually felt obliged to register with FARA. Meanwhile, Huckabee tweeted, “Just back from a few days in surprisingly beautiful, modern, and hospitable Doha, Qatar.” Finally, at that U.N. meeting, President Trump actually sat:{ down with Emir al-Thani of Qatar and }:{, “We’ve been friends a long time… I have a very strong feeling [the Qatar diplomatic crisis] will be solved quickly.” They both then emphasized the “tremendous” and “strong” relationship between their countries.}:

The Qataris next mounted a concerted defense against HR 2712. Lobbying firms they hired, particularly Avenue Strategies and Husch Blackwell, launched a multifaceted campaign to prevent that legislation from passing. Elliott Broidy even claimed in a lawsuit that the Qatari government and several of its lobbyists had hacked his email account and distributed private emails of his to members of Congress in an attempt to discredit his work for the Saudis.

In November 2017, Barry Bennett from Avenue Strategies went on the attack, using a powerful weapon in Washington politics: Israel. He distributed aletter to members of Congress written by a former high-ranking official in the Israeli national security establishment explicitly stating that Qatar had not provided military support to Hamas, as HR 2712 claimed it had.

Three months later, Husch Blackwell all but threatened Congress and the Trump administration with the cancellation of a $6.2 billion Boeing contract to sell F-15 fighters to the Qatari military (and the potential loss of thousands of associated jobs) if the bill passed and sanctions were imposed on that country. All of this was linked to a concerted effort by Qatari agents to contact “nearly two dozen House offices, including then House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy,” to prevent the bill’s passage, according to a report by the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy where we work. Ultimately, HR 2712 died a slow death in Congress and never became law.

The Saudi Bloc’s Battle for the War in Yemen

Just as Qatar started to turn the tide in the fight for influence in Washington, the Saudis and their allies faced another problem: Congress began moving to sever support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. On February 28, 2018, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced a joint resolution to withdraw U.S. support for that war. According to FARA filings,Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP, representing the Saudi ministry of foreign affairs,contacted several members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, particularly Democrats, presumably to persuade them to vote against the measure.

That March, the firm sent out dozens of emails to members of Congress inviting them to a gala dinner with the key Saudi royal, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself. According to the invitation from the CGCN Group, another FARA-registered firm representing the Saudis, the “KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia]-USA Partnership Gala Dinner” was to emphasize the “enduring defense and counter-terrorism cooperation” and “historic alliance” between the two countries. It would end up taking place just two days after the Senate voted to table Sanders’s bill.

Emirati lobbyists similarly reached out to Congress to maintain support for their role in that war. Hagir Elawad & Associates, for example, distributed an op-ed written by the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs justifying the war, as well as a letter written by that country’s ambassador, Yousef al-Otaiba, to 50 congressional contacts defending the Saudi-led coalition’s efforts to avoid civilian casualties and arguing that “the United States has a clear stake in the coalition’s success in Yemen.”

When that conflict began, Qatar was still a member of the coalition, but the imposition of the blockade led it to withdraw its forces from Yemen. Qatari officials then used the country’s media empire, centered on the broadcaster Al Jazeera, to highlight the disastrous aspects of the ongoing war. In doing so, they provided the Saudis and Emiratis with yet another reason to focus their own influence machines on both Qatar’s and Al Jazeera’s destruction. (That network’s closure was, in fact, one of the original 13 demands the Saudis and Emiratis had made for lifting the blockade.)

From the moment it was founded in 1996, Al Jazeerahad been an instrument of Qatari soft power, so it was hardly surprising that the UAE had long pressured members of Congress to force the network to register under FARA as a foreign agent. And Emirati lobbying efforts were not in vain. In early March 2018, 19 members of Congress signed and sent aletter to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions urging the Justice Department to demand that Al Jazeera be registered under FARA. Another such letter sent to the Justice Department in June 2019 by six senators and two representatives asked “why Al Jazeera and its employees have not been required to register.” According to FARA filings, all but one of those representatives had either received campaign contributions from or been contacted by a Saudi or Emirati lobbying firm. Al Jazeera, however, has yet to register.

The Murder of Jamal Khashoggi

Despite the efforts of Saudi and Emirati lobbyists in the early months of 2018, the emir of Qatar still managed to land an invitation to the Oval Office. At their meeting that April 10th, President Trump again described al-Thani as a “friend” and a “great gentleman” as well. The emir, in turn, thanked the president for “supporting us during this blockade.”

If Trump’s cozying up to him was a setback for the Saudis, the murder of critic and Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi nearly did in the Saudi lobbying juggernaut as well. The CIA later confirmed that the crown prince himself had ordered that Saudi citizen’s assassination at the country’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

As a result, some lobbying firmscut ties with the kingdom and its influence on Capitol Hill waned, as did positive public opinion about Saudi Arabia. In December 2018, the Senate passed the Sanders bill to end support for the war in Yemen. Both houses of Congress also passed a War Powers resolution to end involvement in that conflict, a historic congressional move in this century, even if later vetoed by President Trump (as were a series of attempts to block his treasured arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates).

Given the president’s unyielding support for the Saudis and Emiratis as especially lucrative customers for this country’s defense industry, the Qataris have clearly decided to crib the Saudi playbook. In May, that country purchased 24 Apache helicopters for $3 billion and, a few months later, agreed to pay for and manage a $1.8 billion expansion of Al Udeid Air Base to ensure the American military’s continued presence for the foreseeable future. In doing so, Qatar was visibly at work coopting two of the most powerful lobbies in Washington: the military and the weapons makers.

And the Winners Are…

Though Qatar faced a near-existential threat to its survival when the blockade began, three years later it’s not only surviving, but thriving thanks significantly to its influence operations in Washington. They have helped immeasurably to deepen economic, diplomatic, and military relations between the two countries.

Meanwhile, the emir’s rivals in Riyadh not only failed to make their blockade a success, but saw their influence wane appreciably in the U.S. as they stumbled from one public relations fiasco to the next. Even their staunchest defender, Donald Trump, recently threatened to sever U.S. military support for the Kingdom if the Saudi royals didn’t end their oil war with Russia (which they promptly did).

In truth, however, the real loser in this struggle for influence hasn’t been Saudi Arabia or the Emiratis, it’s been America. After all, the efforts of both sides to deepen their ties with the military-industrial complex (reinforcing the hyper-militarization of U.S. foreign policy) and increase their sway in Congress have ensured that the real interests of this country played second fiddle to those of Middle Eastern despots. Certainly, their acts helped ensure near historic levels of arms sales to the region, while prolonging the wars in Yemen andSyria, and so contributing to death and devastation on an almost unimaginable scale.

None of this had anything to do with the real interests of Americans, unless you mean the arms industry and K Street lobbyists who have been the only clear American winners in this never-ending PR war in Washington. In the process, those three Persian Gulf states have delivered a genuine knockout blow to the very idea that U.S. foreign policy should be driven by national — not special — interests.

Morgan Palumbo is a researcher with the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the :{Center for International Policy:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:.

Jessica Draper is a researcher with the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative and Arms and Security Project at the :{Center for International Policy:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:.

oil policy frack bust mbs

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/why-the-oil-and-gas-industry-will-never-be-the-same/

an 320

here’s what the imprisonment of brave Saudi women exposes about the crown prince and his Western allies

Medea Benjamin, Ariel Gold / Independent Media

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/saudi-arabia-in-royal-purge-over-coup-plot/

riyadh (AFP) – Saudi authorities have detained three princes including King Salman’s brother and nephew for allegedly plotting a coup, three sources told AFP Saturday, signalling the de facto ruler’s tightening grip on power.The detentions, which cast aside the last vestiges of potential opposition to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, come at a sensitive time as the petro-state grapples with plunging oil prices and limits access to Islam’s holiest sites over fears of the new coronavirus.Royal guards detained Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, a brother of King Salman, and the monarch’s nephew…

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/saudi-princes-hacking-of-bezoss-phone-raises-serious-questions-about-other-compromised-elites-un-report/

no lnx wapo

Democracy Dies in Darkness

Global Opinions

Disgrace in the desert: The shameless return of business and government leaders to Saudi Arabia

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday. (Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters)

By Ali AlAhmed

October 31, 2019

Ali AlAhmed is founder and director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs.

This week, many of the world’s business and government leaders have convened in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for the 2019 Future Investment Initiative, the Saudi regime’s annual money fest to promote doing business with the kingdom. Instead of the romanticized moniker “Davos in the Desert,” it would be better to call it a “Disgrace in the Desert.”

Last year’s event was shunned by most leading financiers due to disgust over the shocking murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi-born critic and Post contributing columnist.

So, what has changed this year to entice President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and top executives of BlackRock, Blackstone and Goldman Sachs to show up?

Well, here’s what hasn’t changed: The CIA’s finding that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s effective ruler, was the one who ordered Khashoggi’s brutal execution in Istanbul. To date, none of those implicated has faced any serious punishment or accountability.

What has also not changed: Saudi Arabia remains not only a rogue state by most international standards — it also makes an unstable strategic partner for the United States and others, fundamentally incompatible with Western business practices. The entire kingdom is now controlled by a ruthless 30-something whose first instinct is to imprison, torture, expropriate and murder.

Those attending will explain that the prince, known as MBS, is a reformer who has freed women to drive and is shepherding the royal family’s oil giant, Aramco, toward the biggest IPO in history. What they cannot explain is how such a reformer could have detained and coerced his political opponents and family members — in Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton, the very hotel where the investment conference is taking place — to clear the way to the throne for him.

Of course his defenders would say it was all part of an “anti-corruption campaign.” MBS has said the ordeal convinced the detained royals to part with $100 billion — but he has offered no evidence to back this.

While he has pushed a change to allow women to drive cars for the first time, MBS has imprisoned and tortured the same rights activists who had been demonstrating to achieve that. Many others, including U.S. citizens — among them my cousin Badr al-Ibrahim, a physician and writer — are being held in secret, and relatives have no information on their condition, status or place of imprisonment. These are the disappeared.

A generation ago, Saudi Arabia supported the U.S. goal of stability in the Middle East. Today, with MBS in charge, the kingdom plays a destabilizing force, carrying out a devastating war in Yemen, which has generated the world’s largest famine. In Libya, Khalifa Hifter, a Saudi-backed former general under Moammar Gaddafi, has launched a campaign to overthrow the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord.

Every day in Saudi schools, 6 million children are being indoctrinated by textbooks preaching hatred and extermination of Jews, Christians and all Muslims who don’t follow the narrowest interpretation of Wahhabi precepts. The same kingdom that supposedly opens to the West is simultaneously raising generation after generation to despise it. And it is not providing them basic modern life skills like critical thinking, intercultural respect and intellectual curiosity. In very real terms, Saudi children are not being taught very differently than they would be under al-Qaeda or the Islamic State — a ticking time bomb for anti-Western terror and for bringing down the kingdom itself.

Taken altogether, this makes a very strange recipe for hosting the debutante’s ball of 21st-century business. We do need Saudi investment and engagement with the West. We will need access to fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, and a strong U.S.-Saudi alliance is critical to advancing stability in the Middle East and beyond. But rewarding the worst inclinations of the most autocratic Saudi ruler in living history risks each of these priorities.

The Post’s View: The Trump administration won’t stand for Khashoggi. It could at least stand for jailed Saudi women.

Kirk Rudell: The tragedy of Fahad Albutairi and Loujain al-Hathloul

Judith E. Tucker and Miriam R. Lowi: Saudi Arabia’s reforms expand the space for women — but still deny them a voice of their own

Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression

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Davos in the Desert: Kushner, Mnuchin & others to attend from ...

https://www.aljazeera.com › ajimpact › davos-desert-kushner-mnuchin-atte...

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:{Oct 23, 2019 - :{Davos:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: in the :{Desert:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:: :{Kushner:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, Mnuchin & others to attend from US ... A year on, :{MBS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: 'gets pass from world leaders' on Khashoggi murder.:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Saudi Arabia's 'Davos in the Desert' is a shameless spectacle ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com › opinions › 2019/10/31 › disgrace-desert-...

Oct 31, 2019 - Instead of the romanticized moniker “Davos in the Desert,” it would be better to ... senior adviser Jared Kushner, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and top ... Those attending will explain that the prince, known as MBS, is a ...

Saudi 'Davos' turnout underscores costs of Khashoggi murder ...

https://www.pri.org › stories › saudi-davos-turnout-underscores-costs-khas...

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:{Oct 28, 2019 - ... business boycotted Saudi Arabia's ":{Davos:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: in the :{Desert:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:" event in the wake of ... Mnuchin and Jared :{Kushner:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, a White House adviser and President Donald ... According to the CIA, Salman, better known as :{MBS:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, ordered the ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

===

t rump said he wants to stop ‘ridiculous endless wars’ — now the Pentagon is sending thousands to Saudi Arabia

Alex Henderson October 11, 2019

Almost a month has passed since the September 14 attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, which members of both President Donald Trump’s administration and the Saudi government have blamed on…

hrw

Saudi-led coalition naval forces have carried out at least five deadly attacks on Yemeni fishing boats since 2018, killing at least 47 Yemeni fishermen, including 7 children, in apparent war crimes.

Fishermen waved white cloths, raised their hands, or otherwise showed they posed no threat. In three attacks, coalition forces did not attempt to rescue survivors adrift at sea, and many drowned.

“Before the war, fishing was good,” said the wife of a fisherman. “But we heard that eight men from the neighborhood next to us were killed … so [my husband] stopped going.”

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/trumps-2016-america-first-energy-speech-was-edited-and-preapproved-by-saudi-arabia-and-uae/

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Trump’s 2016 ‘America First’ energy speech was edited and pre-approved by Saudi Arabia and UAE

President Donald Trump walks with Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, along the West Colonnade of the White House, Tuesday, March 14, 2017. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)]

Written by Mark Sumner / Daily Kos July 30, 2019

During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump was set to do a speech on energy in which he was going to start pitching the phrase “America First,” but before he went onstage to talk about his plans for American energy production, one of Trump’s advisers ran the speech past officials from the United Arab Emirates. And then copies were sent to Saudi Arabia. So it was America first—so long as the UAE and Saudis are okay with that. When he finally got around to sharing the speech with Americans, some of the language in Trump’s “America First” speech actually came from the UAE.

According to ABC News, it was Trump adviser Thomas Barrack who arranged to give representatives from the UAE a preview of the speech two weeks before Trump delivered it. An associate of Barrack’s provided the speech to both Saudi and UAE representatives, still before Trump had delivered it to Americans. Finally, Barrack worked with Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort to insert revisions made by the UAE into the speech that Trump actually delivered. Manafort wrote back to Barrack confirming that the final version of the speech included the language requested by the UAE.

Why is this coming to light now? Because investigators for theHouse Oversight Committee—the committee chaired by Rep. Elijah Cummings—have unearthed a trove of communications featuring Manafort, Barrack, and representatives from the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Though Trump’s attack on Rep. Cummings appears to have been tied to a Fox News hit piece, the idea of going after the Oversight Committee chair might very much have already been on Trump’s mind.

The recommended language from Barrack’s UAE contact at one point included suggesting that Trump directly mention Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, but that apparently didn’t mesh too well with the screw-the-world tone of the speech that included Trump’s declaration that he would withdraw from the Paris agreement. The final speech included a toned-down version of the text requested by the UAE that said that Trump wanted to “work with our Gulf allies to develop a positive energy relationship as part of our anti-terrorism strategy.”

Barrack seemed to realize that this communication between the Trump campaign and a foreign government over the future of U.S. energy policy was problematic at best. In an exchange with Manafort, he noted that the language he was proposing to add to the speech was “probably as close as I can get without crossing a lot of lines.” Whether he’s concerned about crossing U.S. law, or crossing Mohammed bin Salman, isn’t clear.

Investigators for the Oversight Committee have collected more than 60,000 documents showing “intermingling of private interests and public policy decisions” by Trump both before and after the election. Some of this information was released in a report on Monday, and follows similar information released by the House in February after whistleblowers discussed these connections between the Trump White House and foreign governments.

The request to mention Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, along with the crown prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is of great interest. At the time of Trump’s speech, Mohammed bin Salman was not the crown prince. He wouldn’t assume that position until an internal “mini-coup” in 2017, immediately following Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia. Since then, Jared Kushner has made multiple trips to visit him, delivering to him classified information to use against his enemies. Trump has issued two vetoes of bills designed to halt arms sales used in Mohammed bin Salman’s expansive war in Yemen.

RS andy kroll

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/elliott-broidy-donald-trump-swamp-793159/

no lnx

At 3:45 p.m. on October 6th, 2017, an unassuming man in his early sixties with a low, raspy voice and a thin, wide smile arrived at the White House. He had been here before, in the George W. Bush years, when he was one of the most sought-after fundraisers in the Republican Party. But a scandal had derailed his life, and afterward he had disappeared from politics. In early 2016, the opportunity arose to make his return. The man had helped Donald J. Trump’s long-shot campaign raise millions of dollars, and he could rightly say he played a role in the most improbable presidential victory in American history. Now, Elliott Broidy had come to deliver an urgent message. After a brief visit with Jared Kushner, he was summoned to meet the president in the Oval Office.

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Broidy told Trump about a recent trip he’d taken to the United Arab Emirates, the small but wealthy Persian Gulf nation, on behalf of a defense-contracting company he owned. Broidy raved about the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s de facto leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, known as MBZ, whom he had met with while in the Emirates.He said that MBZ and Mohammed bin Salman, the young crown prince of Saudi Arabia, were creating an all-Muslim counterterrorism force made up of 5,000 Arab soldiers to fight against the Taliban and ISIS. With the help of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Broidy said, his company would assist the UAE and Saudi Arabia to train and assist those pan-Arab fighters.

Trump loved the idea. As far as he knew, Broidy had business interests in the Middle East and had briefed the president as a courtesy. What Trump didn’t know — and Broidy didn’t disclose, according to his detailed notes about the meeting obtained by Rolling Stone — was that Broidy was also waging a secretive, multimillion-dollar PR and influence campaign in Washington, D.C., to persuade the Trump administration to punish Qatar, an enemy of the UAE and Saudi Arabia — but an ally of the U.S.

Broidy’s operation came with code names (Trump was “Chairman,” MBZ “Friend,” Qatar the “snake”), convoluted money trails and a shadowy liaison to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The liaison urged Broidy to make the most of his time with Trump (his “priceless asset”) and reiterated MBZ’s wishes in an email sent to Broidy a few days before the Oval Office meeting. “Again, take advantage of it to tell him that Friend would like to come asap to meet you [Trump] SOONEST out of official site,” the go-between wrote in a long email. The two crown princes “are counting on you to relate it blunt and straight as it is!?.?.?.?Tomorrow is a Pivotal and could turn out to be a Historical and milestone meeting!”

Broidy did as he was told, telling Trump that MBZ stood ready to travel to the U.S. for a meeting but would prefer a more private setting than the Oval Office. Broidy recommended New York or New Jersey. When Trump asked Broidy for his thoughts about Qatar, Broidy slammed the Qataris as financial supporters of terrorism and included them with North Korea and Iran in a new “axis of evil.”

Trump smiled and nodded. He had reason to champion Broidy’s cause. Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia had long been loyal customers of his. The Saudis “buy all sorts of my stuff,” Trump said in 2015, and a massive Trump-branded golf course had recently opened in Dubai, in the UAE. The meeting was nearing its end, but the president had one last question for Broidy:What did he think of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson? Tillerson, the former Exxon-Mobil CEO, had shown support for the Qataris. In private, Broidy had seethed at Tillerson, calling him “a tower of Jello.” Broidy told Trump that Tillerson was “performing poorly” and should be fired at a “politically convenient time.”

Broidy then met with H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, to push for the private, informal meeting with Trump that MBZ wanted. The sun was starting to set when Broidy left the White House, confident he’d delivered his message. The crown princes were thrilled. Not long after, the liaison emailed him, “You have become a HERO here and at KSA [Kingdom of Saudi -Arabia], to say the least.”

DEPENDING ON where you stood, Trump’s election posed either an existential threat to the American experiment or the business opportunity of a lifetime. The thousands of lawyers, former congressional staffers and retired lawmakers who ply their trade as lobbyists had spent two years preparing for a Clinton administration. “If you went around town and told these lobbying firms you supported Trump, it was like a hate crime,” says Tom Davis, a former lobbyist and onetime Virginia congressman. “Trump threw out the book. He brought in a whole new crowd. The players changed, and the rules changed.”

Overnight, Trump’s small circle of friends and loyalists became extremely valuable. They could speak Trump’s language, explain him, influence him. Or at least that’s what they told the blue-chip corporations and foreign governments scrambling to find someone to help them navigate the new administration. “There’s, like, five people who bet on the long shot and won,” a seasoned GOP operative told me. “The day after the election, those five people all think they’re the biggest fucking swinging dicks in the universe. I’m the guy who can make all your dreams come true now.”

That’s where Elliott Broidy came in. Broidy set out to cash in on his connections to the new administration with breathtaking speed and audacity. In the aftermath of Trump’s win, Broidy, who landed a coveted spot as a vice-chair for Trump’s inauguration committee, used his ties to the president-elect to pitch his defense-contracting company, Circinus LLC, to foreign leaders. He invited two senior Angolan officials to Trump’s inauguration festivities while attaching a proposed contract with Broidy’s firm. He helped secure a brief audience for the Romanians with Trump at a dinner where Broidy was seated next to the president-elect. For a starting rate of $350,000 a month,Broidy offered to help a lawyer based in Moscow remove U.S. sanctions on two Russian companies.(The lawyer recalls Broidy’s proposal but not the suggested fees included in Broidy’s memo, and he says the plan did not go forward.) And in another instance, Broidy and his wife, a lawyer and former entertainment executive, hatched a plan to earn $75 million if they could get the Justice Department to drop an investigation into the multibillion-dollar fraud involving Malaysia’s prime minister and its state investment fund.

The real prize for Broidy, however, was two of the richest countries in the world: Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Contracts with their defense ministries for his security company could be worth hundreds of millions, if not billions. For years, Broidy had tried to win business with the Emirati and Saudi royal families. But that was before Trump came along. “President Trump campaigned on a promise to drain the swamp,” Paul Seamus Ryan, a vice president at Common Cause, tells Rolling Stone. “Instead, he brought a group of swamp creatures with him.”

This story is based on more than 40 interviews, hundreds of pages of legal records as well as private emails and other documents of Broidy’s, which reveal his efforts to shape the Trump administration’s Middle East policy and score foreign contracts for his company. Before publication of this story, a lawyer for Broidy sent a letter to Rolling Stone alleging that “paid agents” of Qatar stole the emails from Broidy as retribution for the “exercise of his First Amendment rights to highlight Qatar’s support for global terrorist organizations.” The lawyer contended that some of the documents were doctored or forged by the alleged hackers. Taken together with Rolling Stone’s reporting, the documents give a rare inside view of how the Trump-era swamp works — and Broidy’s place in it.

ONSTAGE, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, joined by members of the new First Family, swayed together to a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” It was January 20th, 2017, a night of parties celebrating the swearing in of the 45th president. At first glance, Trump’s inauguration resembled those that had come before it — the black-tie balls, the speeches and shout-outs to the supporters in attendance. But gaze out into the audience and you saw a motley cast of right-wing conspiracy theorists, overseas real-estate developers and a few Russian oligarchs. By day, they hung out in the lobby of the Trump International Hotel a few blocks from the White House, transforming it into a real-life Mos Eisley cantina, the scene of nonstop scheming and schmoozing by the strange new denizens of Trumpworld.

Larry Mizel, Elliott Broidy, Senator Jeff SessionsChairman's Global Dinner in Washington DC, USA - 17 Jan 2017

Broidy (center) with then Sen. Jeff Sessions and CEO Larry Mizel. After the election, men like Broidy who had backed Trump were very valuable in D.C. “There’s five people out there who bet on a long shot and won,” says one longtime GOP operative. “They could make all your dreams come true now.” Photo credit: Clint Spaulding/WWD/REX/Shutterstock

One person who was in attendance was a Lebanese-American businessman named George Nader. Short and stout, with thinning gray hair, Nader, like Broidy, had once been a player in Washington, and now, years later, the two men met for the first time, at the inauguration. The encounter would prove pivotal.

Nader had run a small but respected magazine in the 1990s called Middle East Insight, and people in the foreign-policy community knew him as a consummate wheeler-dealer, a mediator-for-hire who was always bringing different Middle Eastern delegations — the Israelis, the Syrians, Yasser Arafat — to Washington for conferences and negotiations.

Nader vanished from D.C. in the early 2000s; it later emerged that he’d been convicted in the Czech Republic for sexually abusing minors. He resurfaced in Iraq, working with Erik Prince, the founder of the controversial defense contractor Blackwater. Later, he served as a consultant to two Emirati investment firms and as an adviser to MBZ.

For Nader and MBZ, the Trump presidency was an opportunity for the UAE to assert itself as a greater player in the Middle East. It was also a chance for the Emiratis and Saudis to go on the attack against two of their fiercest rivals, Iran and Qatar. A small monarchy located on a peninsula roughly the size of Connecticut, Qatar has the highest per-capita income in the world, thanks to its vast natural-gas fields shared with Iran.Qatar, some say, is more of a company than a country. The ruling al-Thani family plays an outsize and often provocative — critics say destabilizing — role in the Middle East, funding pro-democracy conferences and using their TV network, Al-Jazeera, to shape public opinion in the region. Qatar’s critics accuse the al-Thanis of allowing terrorists to live in their country and use their financial system.

For years, Saudi Arabia and the UAE had wanted nothing more than to cripple Qatar. In an allegedly leaked email from 2017, the UAE’s ambassador to the U.S. wrote that conquering Qatar would “solve everyone’s problems. Literally,” and that Saudi King Abdullah had considered “doing something in Qatar” before he died in 2015. (Representatives for the Saudi and UAE embassies in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.) Qatar enjoyed a strong relationship with the U.S., hosting one of the most important American air bases in the world, at al-Udeid.

But now, in the chaos of the new administration, the Saudis and Emiratis sought to turn the U.S. against Qatar — and Broidy would convince them that he could make it happen. “The Gulf nations view their wealth as an extension of their power,” says Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee. “When they’ve got a president of questionable ethics and one driven by money, it’s an attractive target.”

Nader and MBZ understood that there were ways to get to Trump that wouldn’t have worked with previous administrations. Trump liked to say that his primary consultant was himself; he trusted few people beyond his own family. Former campaign staffers, Mar-a-Lago members and business partners filled the vacuum where academics, diplomats and other experts would usually be found. The challenge was finding the right acolyte with enough juice to get your message in front of the easily distractible Trump.

For Nader, that man was Elliott Broidy.What they talked about the night of the inauguration isn’t clear. (A lawyer for Nader disputed the reporting about Nader’s pedophilia conviction and claimed that the emails between him and Broidy were “altered or fabricated” but did not give any examples.) But by the time the evening’s festivities were finished, the two men had the makings of a plan.

SOON AFTER the inauguration, a message appeared in Broidy’s inbox from his new friend. “Hi,” Nader wrote. “Here is my private email.” It was one of the first of hundreds of messages Broidy and Nader would exchange over the following year.

Broidy began his work for Nader by designing an extensive PR and influence offensive.The strategy, documents show, involved linking Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, the political and social group with millions of followers often accused of fomenting terrorism. In a memo to Nader dated March 15th, 2017, Broidy wrote that theBrotherhood had “infiltrated the Democratic Party” and “almost elected their champion, Keith Ellison, national chairman.” (Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress and now Minnesota’s attorney general, has never championed the group.) In another memo, Broidy accused Qatar of funding and hosting members of Hamas and the Taliban. (The State Department’s 2017 terrorism report highlighted Qatar’s participation with the U.S. to combat terrorism financingwhile noting thatterrorist financiers within Qatar are still able to exploit its informal financial system.)

Broidy sought to manufacture a groundswell of activity to demonstrate to Democrats and Republicans that Qatar was not an ally and that the Trump administration should take punitive action in the form of sanctions against Qatari individuals or a foreign-terrorist designation for the entire Muslim Brotherhood. If all went as planned, there would be no public evidence of Broidy and Nader’s efforts behind this covert operation. These activities are common in Washington: For decades, foreign governments have retained pricey law firms and political consulting firms to represent their interests. What made this one so striking was that Broidy and Nader operated outside the usual world of K Street firms and consulting shops.

Broidy had every reason to carry out his plan in secret. The last time he climbed to the top of American politics it ended in disgrace. Raised in Los Angeles in a middle-class Jewish family, he got a degree in accounting at the University of Southern California while running a laundromat on the side. Later he kept the books for the Bell family that had founded the Taco Bell chain and started his own investment firm, quickly becoming rich. Broidy had given modestly to both Democrats and Republicans running for office, but after 9/11 he grew increasingly hawkish and was an obsessive defender of Israel. He became a leader in a small, tightknit group of Jewish Republicans in Southern California who contributed substantial sums of money to Republican and conservative causes.

Our Man in Washington: George Nader and Broidy worked together to align the U.S. with Saudi and UAE interests. When Nader, who was convicted of sexual abuse in Europe, wanted a photo with Trump, Broidy misspelled his name as Vader to White House chief-of-staff to help Nader get past security.

George Nader (above with Trump) and Broidy worked together to align the U.S. with Saudi and UAE interests.

“Mr. L.A.” was how one Republican fundraiser who attended events at Broidy’s house described him. He and his wife, Robin, threw high-dollar political fundraisers and charitable events at Rosewood, their Georgian-style mansion in the hills of Bel-Air that held a near-mythical place in Republican circles; George W. Bush supposedly once said of the place, “This is nicer than the White House.”

Then it all came crashing down. In December 2009, Andrew Cuomo, then the New York attorney general, announced that Broidy had pleaded guilty to bribing officials in the New York state comptroller’s office in exchange for a $250 million investment in a fund he had started called Markstone Capital. Broidy admitted to paying for lavish trips and gifts for state officials and their families and providing $300,000 for a movie called Chooch, produced by the brother of an employee in the comptroller’s office. “This is an old-fashioned payoff of state officials,” Cuomo said at the time. (The felony charge was later reduced to a misdemeanor in exchange for Broidy’s cooperation with the AG’s office.) Overnight, Mr. L.A. became a pariah. Candidates returned his donations. He resigned from Markstone. He and his wife moved out of their mansion and sold off a portion of their wine collection.

For the next few years, Broidy toiled in obscurity. He produced a low-budget movie and hired a PR firm to churn out feel-good releases (“Elliott Broidy Voices Support for Homeless Youth as Los Angeles Area Cities Continue Debates Over the Issue”) about his efforts to combat homelessness and support cancer research.

In the 2016 presidential race, Trump wasn’t his first (or second or third) choice: He’d initially supported Lindsey Graham, whom he’d known from the Bush years, switching to Marco Rubio, then to Ted Cruz. At first, Broidy didn’t think much of Trump: He allegedly told someone close to him Trump was an “idiot” who couldn’t even pronounce the names of countries correctly. But when the RNC and Trump campaign, whose lead fundraiser was Broidy’s friend Steve Mnuchin, came calling in 2016, desperate to find anyone who could raise money, Broidy threw himself into a campaign other Republicans couldn’t stomach. And it surely seemed like a lost cause to the people Broidy was soliciting — until the night of November 8th, 2016.

BY THE END of March 2017, Broidy had finalized a detailed and bulleted strategy with the goal of engineering a major crackdown on Qatar in Congress and the Trump administration. The plan, which he sent to Nader, called for enlisting (and bankrolling) think tanks specializing in foreign policy to educate the public on the dangers of Qatar and the Brotherhood. Broidy proposed using newspapers, magazines, YouTube and social media to spread the message. He suggested working with dark-money nonprofit groups that can run more overt political ads and have more leeway to push lawmakers for congressional resolutions, hearings and other official actions to gin up opposition against the two targets. He also designed a star-studded conference intended to move lawmakers, the administration and American public opinion in the direction of isolating and punishing Qatar.

Nader asked Broidy to send him an invoice for an initial $2.5 million. Whether that was a down payment or the full cost isn’t clear. If Broidy succeeded and proved his worth to Nader and the Emirati and Saudi princes, he hoped the payoff would come in the form of lucrative contracts for his company.

Broidy relied on a few key figures in Washington to help carry out his plan. One was Rep. Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Broidy had helped Royce’s wife get a job at the State Department. A onetime Saudi critic, Royce figured prominently into Broidy’s work. Broidy told Nader that he “caused” Royce to enter into the Congressional Record a fawning FoxNews.com op-ed by a Saudi general that hailed Trump for ushering in a new era in U.S.-Saudi relations.

Royce also headlined a May 2017 conference on Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood that, at least on paper, was organized by two think tanks, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy and the Hudson Institute. But emails and other planning documents show that Broidy had a hand in the planning. With dozens of journalists in the audience at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, Royce announced an upcoming piece of legislation that would accuse Qatar of funding Hamas and open up the possibility of sanctions. “This is the first such bill to do so!” Broidy told Nader in an email. (Royce did not respond to requests for comment.)

Broidy’s conference came amid a crescendo of op-eds, news stories and other critical statements about Qatar in the spring and summer of 2017. As one former foreign lobbyist told me, small actions that create the perception of closer ties or tensions between a foreign nation and the U.S. are nearly as valuable as actual policy. That can take the form of a public event, a critical editorial or a letter from one member of Congress to his or her colleagues.

The lobbyist tells the story of a 2015 hearing about U.S.-Hungary relations hosted by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., the then-chair of a subcommittee focusing on Eastern Europe. Few people attended the hearing, and it received almost zero coverage in the U.S., but it created a “deluge of coverage” in Hungary and was used by the country’s autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orban, to show that he had champions in the U.S. “The smallest or inconsequential action by a member of Congress, such as a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter, can be put out in the foreign press and used by governments to justify their policies and politics,” the lobbyist says.

One glaring difference between what the lobbyist did for Hungary and Broidy’s efforts was that the lobbyist disclosed his work. Under the law, Americans who try to influence American policy or public opinion on behalf of a foreign government must register under what’s known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law enacted in 1938 to combat the spread of Nazi propaganda. Until very recently,FARA was treated like “a stop sign in the desert,” as one foreign lobbyist told me. Broidy, however, never registered as a lobbyist or reported his activities under FARA; Chris Clark, a lawyer for Broidy, has noted that Nader is a U.S. citizen and said there is “no evidence” that either Nader or a foreign entity directed Broidy’s actions. “Elliott Broidy has never agreed to work for, been retained or compensated by, nor taken direction from any foreign government directly or indirectly for any interaction with the United States government, ever,” Clark tells Rolling Stone. “Any implication to the contrary is a lie.”

Joshua Rosenstein, a lawyer who specializes in FARA, tells Rolling Stone that FARA is an intentionally broad law that encompasses not just lobbying but any work that someone intends to or believes will influence the American public about the politics or policies of a foreign government. “The facts and exchange of emails and documents would give me significant pause if I were advising a client about proceeding under similar circumstances,” Rosenstein says, “and the Department of Justice would be justified in taking a close look at this.” (Clark, Broidy’s lawyer, says Rosenstein’s comment is “ill-informed” and based on “extremely limited knowledge.”)

Broidy’s behind-the-scenes efforts were having an impact. Trump had chosen to take his first foreign trip to Riyadh, where he participated in a strange glowing-orb ceremony with the Saudi king and vowed to work with the Saudis and the UAE to support a new counterterrorism center in the Middle East. He slammed the Iran nuclear treaty negotiated by Obama, mulled a foreign-terrorist designation for the Muslim Brotherhood and was increasingly critical of Qatar, echoing Broidy’s own talking points. “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology,” Trump tweeted in June 2017. “Leaders pointed to Qatar — look!”

A day earlier, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt had cut diplomatic ties and imposed a blockade on Qatar, closing their borders to the Qataris, a serious blow for a country surrounded by water on three sides that exported natural gas and imported most everything else — and a major escalation in the conflict.

Meanwhile, Trump’s criticism of Qatar heated up and he appeared to be firmly on the side of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In late June, after just five months in office, he kicked off his 2020 re-election effort with a $35,000-a-head fundraiser at his D.C. hotel, reportedly hauling in $10 million. From the stage, Trump singled out a handful of people in the crowd, including Broidy, who was back on the RNC’s finance team. “Everybody knows Elliott,” Trump said. “Thanks, Elliott.” Later, he took a direct shot at Qatar. “We always say Qa-tar. It’s Qa-tar, they prefer. I prefer that they don’t fund terrorists.”

BROIDY’S WORK had initially caught the Qataris flat-footed. But they soon responded by launching a lobbying counteroffensive in Washington, hiring former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, several former Trump staffers and a slew of others at a rate of several hundred thousand dollars a month. One of those lobbyists was Nick Muzin, who had worked on Trump’s campaign and had extensive ties to the Orthodox Jewish community. Just as Broidy had tapped Christian and Jewish groups, including the American Israel Political Action Committee and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews to criticize Qatar, Muzin went to work convincing Jewish and evangelical leaders that Qatar was a friend and ally.

He and his business partner, a kosher-restaurant owner named Joey Allaham, arranged for people close to Trump, including law professor Alan Dershowitz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, to visit Qatar, and steered large sums of Qatari money to groups like the Zionist Organization of America. (After Qatar was revealed as the source, ZOA said it would return the money.) What made this so unusual was that this wasn’t a fight between liberals and conservatives; instead, two conservative Jews were battling it out on opposite sides of a Middle East proxy war.

According to sources, the fleet of lobbyists working for Qatar met weekly at its D.C. embassy, a five-story building that blends in with the surrounding consulting companies. One name often came up at those meetings: Elliott Broidy. The Qataris had allegedly drawn up an enemies list, and Broidy was on it. Qatar is “going after you,” Muzin later told an associate of Broidy’s.

For his part, Broidy’s plan was right on track. He used his success to sell Nader and the crown princes on the need to hire Circinus. Contained in Broidy’s leaked emails is a memo he wrote for Nader — and seemingly intended for Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. Trump’s trip to Riyadh, Broidy wrote, was a “smashing success” and a “major turning point” in U.S.-Saudi relations. He then listed the ways Circinus could assist the Saudi government. “My Goals, Circinus’ goals and the goals of KSA are completely aligned,” he wrote. According to materials Broidy sent to Nader, he had brought on General McChrystal as the chairman of Circinus’ “special-operations division.” Other documents listed former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as part of Broidy’s team.

As the Qataris ramped up their D.C. presence, Broidy redoubled his efforts to, as he wrote Nader, “crush the snake!” He helped organize another conference on Qatar that attracted bigger names than the first, including Panetta and Gen. David Petraeus as well as former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. (Bannon, emails show, earned $100,000 for the appearance. He declined to comment.)

In an email titled “Strictly Confidential” sent to Nader on November 10th, 2017, Broidy outlined 11 different efforts underway to pressure the Trump administration into action. A handful of Republican and Democratic lawmakers would soon sign on to letters to U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin (“a close friend of mine,” Broidy claimed) that were critical of Qatar. Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., Broidy wrote, would introduce legislation allowing victims of attacks by Hamas to sue Qatar. (Broidy would join DeSantis’ fundraising team when he successfully ran for Florida governor.) Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., had agreed to “educate” his fellow senators about the wisdom of relocating the U.S. air command center out of al-Udeid. (Cotton also received donations from both Elliott and Robin Broidy.)

When Broidy needed help publicizing a classified State Department agreement signed with Qatar, he said he turned to “my friend” Rep. Robert Pittenger, a three-term GOP congressman from North Carolina. According to Broidy’s memo, he and his team “convinced” Pittenger to read the document in a secure classified-information facility at the State Department, get the document moved to Capitol Hill and arrange a “viewing party” so that other members of Congress could read it and speak out about it. (Pittenger received the maximum donation from Broidy.)

Pittenger tells Rolling Stone that Broidy’s description of their relationship is not true. Pittenger, who lost his seat in 2018, says he can’t recall meeting Broidy. He decided to view the classified Qatar agreement at the State Department on his own, he says, and Broidy seems to have taken credit for things he’d already done. “He’s a guy that blows a bunch of smoke,” Pittenger says. “There’s a lot of flaky people in Washington, and they love to promote themselves, and unfortunately he seems to fit in that category.”

Similarly, McChrystal tells Rolling Stone that Broidy exaggerated their relationshipwhen he listed him as the chairman of Circinus’ special-operations division. McChrystal says he spent a few days in the UAE as part of a small team Broidy had assembled to compete for business in the region. He says Broidy asked him to accept a long-term role with Circinus and he declined. “I never thought I was the chairman of any part of the firm, although he was clear in his desire that I do so,” McChrystal writes in an email. “After that trip I did no more work with him.”

A spokesman for Panetta tells Rolling Stone in a statement that Panetta “was never involved in any of Mr. Broidy’s companies. Those claims are false.”

Nader told Broidy he wanted to get his picture taken with Trump. According to the leaked emails, when Nader had previously tried to get a photo with Trump at an event, he was turned away by the Secret Service over “something in his background.” On October 10th, 2017, Broidy and his wife drafted an email intended for John Kelly, the president’s chief of staff, to vouch for Nader, whom Broidy referred to as “George Vader” so that Nader could get his photo with Trump. Some emails sent and received by Broidy also use the name Vader; another mentions Nader’s real name multiple times. Ultimately, Nader got in. A few months later, Broidy sent him his photo with Trump.

By late 2017, Broidy was deep in negotiations with Emirati officials to sign contracts with Circinus potentially worth $120 million, according to an email Broidy sent to his lawyer. A month later, Broidy emailed Nader to say that the first payment from the UAE had gone through: $36 million. Nader got the news as he was getting ready to travel to Florida to join Broidy at Mar-a-Lago for a celebration of the one-year anniversary of Trump’s inauguration. “Terrific! First among many to go!” Nader replied. At Dulles Airport, according to the Associated Press, FBI agents working for Robert Mueller intercepted Nader.

[RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - MAY 21: (----EDITORIAL USE ONLY MANDATORY CREDIT - "BANDAR ALGALOUD / SAUDI ROYAL COUNCIL / HANDOUT" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS----)US President Donald Trump, US First lady Melania Trump (2nd R), Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud (2nd L) and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (L) put their hands on an illuminated globe during the inauguration ceremony of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on May 21, 2017. (Photo by Bandar Algaloud / Saudi Royal Council / Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)]

Trump’s first overseas visit as president was to Saudi Arabia. “The Gulf nations view their wealth as an extension of their power,” says Rep. Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee. “When they’ve got a president of questionable ethics and one driven by money, it’s an attractive target.” Photo credit: Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Royal Council/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

ON FEBRUARY 27th, 2018, two political operatives sat across from each other at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. One was Nick Muzin, the Qatari lobbyist. The other was Joel Mowbray, a conservative-journalist-turned-consultant who has worked for Broidy. Muzin had come to ask for Mowbray’s help to end the blockade against Qatar. When Mowbray declined, Muzin allegedly divulged a startling fact: The New York Times was investigating the connections among Broidy, Nader and the Middle East. Mowbray was surprised. He didn’t know about any story, and no one at the Times had contacted him or Broidy. From there, things completely unraveled for Elliott Broidy.

Two days later, The Wall Street Journal ran a story citing “a cache of emails from Mr. Broidy’s and his wife’s email accounts” that revealed the Broidys’ plan to press the Justice Department to end its investigation into Malaysia’s investment-fund scandal. Soon after, the Times broke the story of Broidy and Nader’s campaign for the UAE and Saudi Arabia, citing Broidy’s memo describing his October meeting with Trump, a copy of which was provided by “someone critical of the Emirati influence in Washington.”

Many suspected that Broidy had been hacked and someone was parceling out his emails to news organizations. When Muzin and Mowbray met again a few days later, Muzin denied any role in the hack-and-dump attack targeting Broidy. But he allegedly told Mowbray that there was “a lot more coming” from the Times and that Broidy was “in deep shit.” More stories soon appeared in the Times, AP, McClatchy, BBC and other outlets citing the hacked documents. The stories prompted an outcry among Democrats: Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Elizabeth Warren called for an investigation into whether Broidy had violated FARA or the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Broidy hired BoiesSchiller Flexner, founded by David Boies, one of the country’s most high-profile litigators, who represented Al Gore in Bush v. Gore and more recently worked for Harvey Weinstein. As for Nader, he’s kept a low profile and is cooperating with the Mueller investigation.

On March 26th, Broidy sued Qatar, Muzin and Muzin’s firm for orchestrating the hack, later adding Allaham as a defendant. (Muzin did not respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for Allaham says, “As Joey has said 100 times, he had nothing to do with the hacking of Mr. Broidy’s emails.”)

The complaint described a “hostile intelligence operation” in which Qatari agents duped Broidy’s wife with a fake Google message into giving up her email password, which was then used to access her and Elliott Broidy’s accounts, while also breaking into Broidy’s company servers. In the winter of 2018, someone using the email account LA.Confidential@mail.com disseminated to the media batches of Broidy’s emails, memos, contracts and more. The documents appeared to be organized by the various countries with which Broidy had pursued business deals — Malaysia, Romania, Angola, Republic of Congo, and of course the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Broidy and his lawyers have verified that his email was hacked, blaming Qatar. (A Qatari spokesman has said Broidy’s allegations are “completely fabricated and without merit.”)

Two weeks after Broidy filed his suit, federal agents raided the office of Michael Cohen, the president’s lawyer. The raid set off an embarrassing chain of events, leading Broidy to admit that he’d had an extramarital affair starting in 2013 with a Playboy Playmate named Shera Bechard. In 2017, Broidy had allegedly gotten Bechard pregnant and demanded she get an abortion; he agreed to pay her $1.6 million in exchange for her silence. Just as he had done for Trump’s affairs with porn actress Stormy Daniels and Playmate Karen McDougal, Cohen helped broker Broidy’s agreement with Bechard. Soon Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti was tweeting about a “prominent GOP donor” who had used Cohen to sign a “hush” deal. (Avenatti says he didn’t disclose any confidential information.) Broidy acknowledged to The Wall Street Journal that he was the donor in Avenatti’s tweet and said he would no longer pay Bechard.

Broidy was toxic once again. Members of Congress, including Royce and Pittenger, returned his donations. He resigned from the RNC’s finance team. Then, in July, Bechard sued Broidy, arguing that he had violated their agreement and owed her close to $1 million. Bechard’s complaint contained multiple redactions, but an error by Broidy’s lawyers disclosed Bechard’s allegations that Broidy kept a gun in his car and claimed to have connections “who could make people disappear.” (Broidy called Bechard’s allegations “false, malicious and disgusting” and accused Bechard of trying to blackmail him.)

Broidy’s efforts also caught the attention of federal law-enforcement agencies. In May, FBI agents twice interviewed a former associate of Broidy’s about his efforts to win contracts with Angola and about African nationals paying to attend Trump’s inauguration, the associate tells Rolling Stone. In August, The Washington Post reported that the Justice Department was investigating Broidy’s work involving the Malaysian investment-fund scandal.

By all indications, Broidy is undaunted and has no plans to go quietly, as he did after his 2009 guilty plea. After a judge dismissed his first lawsuit against Qatar and Muzin, Broidy filed a new one on January 24th in D.C. federal court against Muzin, Allaham and a former Qatari agent.

Broidy and his company have made tens of millions for their work, with the prospect of earning more in the years ahead. (Circinus has multiple postings for job openings in Abu Dhabi.) Whatever price he pays for his influence operation may simply be the cost of doing business in Donald Trump’s swamp. But for now, Broidy has taken Trump’s advice for what to do when dealing with scandals: Fight, fight, fight.

:{:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:Saudi Arabia May Execute Teenager for His Protests — Including When He Was 10

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:{Saudi Arabia May Execute Teenager for His Protests — Including When He Was 10:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:

IN 2011, as Arab Spring protests swept across the Middle East, demonstrations also kicked off in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province. Members of the kingdom’s repressed Shiite minority took to the streets, calling for equal rights and a fairer distribution of oil revenues. The protesters included a group of around 30 kids on bicycles. As a videoreleased last week by CNN shows, those children were led by a smiling 10-year-old in flip-flops named Murtaja Qureiris.

“The people demand human rights!” the young boy can be seen shouting through a megaphone.

Here’s the problem: Demanding human rights in Saudi Arabia lands you in prison. Even if you’re a kid.

Three years later, in September 2014, 13-year-old Murtaja was arrested while on his way to neighboring Bahrain with his family.

“At the time,” reports CNN, “he was considered by lawyers and activists to be the youngest known political prisoner in Saudi Arabia.

Over the past four years, say human rights groups, this teenager has been subjected to torture and intimidation, as well as a spell in solitary confinement. He has been denied access to a lawyer while interrogators try to get him to confess to the trumped-up charges against him. These include “participating in anti-government protests, attending the funeral of his brother Ali Qureiris who was killed in a protest in 2011, joining a ‘terrorist organization,’ throwing Molotov cocktails at a police station, and firing at security forces,” according to Amnesty International.

Last week, we learned that Saudi prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for 18-year-old Murtaja, who is being tried in an anti-terror court. CNN reports that the prosecutors want to “impose the harshest form of the death penalty, which may include crucifixion or dismemberment after execution.”

Got that? The unelected government of a close ally of the United States is planning on brutally executing an 18-year-old member of a minority group, for crimes allegedly committed when he was 10 years old.

Let me repeat: Ten. Years. Old.

We shouldn’t forget the person who is primarily responsible for this outrage: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS. Since his father installed him in power, the violent crushing of political dissent has escalated. According to the CIA, MBS ordered the horrific murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He is also behind the targeting of three Arab activists in Norway, Canada, and the United States.

Much has (rightly) been made of the crown prince’s shocking record on extrajudicial killings. But what of the growing number of judicially sanctioned killings inside of Saudi Arabia on his watch? The planned execution of Murtaja Qureiris may be the most horrendous act yet.

“There should be no doubt that the Saudi Arabian authorities are ready to go to any length to crack down on dissent against their own citizens, including by resorting to the death penalty for men who were merely boys at the time of their arrest,” says Lynn Maalouf, Middle East research director at Amnesty International.

The Gulf kingdom is one of the world’s top executioners and, according to Maalouf, Saudi authorities have “a chilling track record of using the death penalty as a weapon to crush political dissent and punish anti-government protesters — including children — from the country’s persecuted Shi’a minority.”

The majority of the country, and the ruling family, are from a strict school of Sunni Islam called Salafism. In April, 37 people were executed in a single day — the biggest mass execution in the kingdom since 2016 — and the vast majority of them were believed to be Shiites. Three of them, according to human rights group Reprieve, were “minors at the time of their alleged offences.” Such executions, as both Reprieve and Amnesty International have noted, are a brazen violation of international human rights law.

Another three Saudi Shiites — Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon, and Abdullah al-Zaher — who were also below the age of 18 at the time of their alleged crimes, are still on death row and could be executed at anytime.

It isn’t just Shiites, either. MBS has also targeted Sunni clerics who have failed to fall into line. There have been reports that the belligerent and thin-skinned crown prince plans on executing three high-profile Saudi religious scholars — Salman al-Odah, Awad al-Qarni, and Ali al-Omari — all of whom have been held on multiple charges of “terrorism.” 62-year-old Odah is famous in the Arab world for his relatively progressive views on Islam and homosexuality and his 2007 denunciation of Osama bin Laden. His actual “crime”? Tweeting a prayer for reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and its Gulf rival, the Emirate of Qatar. (Full disclosure: I host two TV shows for Qatar-funded Al Jazeera English.)

Supporters of MBS often try and argue that these executions are the product of decisions made in court, not in the royal palace. This is a laughable defense. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. There is no independent judiciary. As CNN reports, “The death penalty can only be enforced by order of King Salman or his authorized representative. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is frequently characterized as the King’s deputy.”

Forget MBS the reformer; meet MBS the executioner. The fact that he has been embraced closely by everyone from Donald Trump to Emmanuel Macron to Theresa May should be a source of shame for those of us living in the West. To quote former Obama-era National Security Council spokesperson Tommy Vietor, MBS is “Kim Jong Un with oil money.”

new

https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/saudi-arabia-beheaded-37-dissidents-last-month-and-u-s-media-called-them-terrorists/

Saudi Arabia executed 37 men on April 23, as it announced in a press release in its official gazette. The first line of the release read, “Saudi Arabia said it executed 37 citizens last Tuesday after they were convicted of terrorism.”

A cursory Google search would have shown that this assertion was completely false. But many in the U.S. press dutifully stenographed this claim into a headline:

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:{:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:Saudi Arabia May Execute Teenager for His Protests — Including When He Was 10

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:{Saudi Arabia May Execute Teenager for His Protests — Including When He Was 10:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: