General Discussion

pnwmom

(108,990 posts) Sat Dec 9, 2017, 06:00 PM Dec 2017

Alias Vaughn on Twitter provides some important context for Rep. Cummings letter.

Last edited Sat Dec 9, 2017, 06:53 PM - Edit history (3)

This is the letter where he's made public the fact that a whistleblower came to them 6 months ago, with information about Michael Flynn, a scheme for nuclear plants in the Middle East, and the Russian sanctions. Trey Gowdy has been refusing to issue subpoenas, and has given Mueller as the excuse, but Mueller gave Cummings an okay on going forward.

Some of her tweets. (If you click on the first you can see all of them.)

Link to tweet

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/us/politics/michael-flynn-russia-sanctions-ripped-up-whistleblower.html

WASHINGTON — Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, told a former business associate that economic sanctions against Russia would be “ripped up” as one of the Trump administration’s first acts, according to an account by a whistle-blower made public on Wednesday.

Mr. Flynn believed that ending the sanctions could allow a business project he had once participated in to move forward, according to the whistle-blower. The account is the strongest evidence to date that the Trump administration wanted to end the sanctions immediately, and suggests that Mr. Flynn had a possible economic incentive for the United States to forge a closer relationship with Russia.

Mr. Flynn had worked on a business venture to partner with Russia to build nuclear power plants in the Middle East until June 2016, but remained close with the people involved afterward. On Inauguration Day, as he sat behind the president listening to the inaugural address, Mr. Flynn, according to the whistle-blower, texted the former business associate to say that the project was “good to go.”

The account is detailed in a letter written by Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. In the letter, Mr. Cummings said that the whistle-blower contacted his office in June and has authorized him to go public with the details. He did not name the whistle-blower.

REP. CUMMINGS’ LETTER: At link below:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/06/us/politics/document-Gowdy-Flynn-Letter.html?_r=0

MORE REPORTING ON CUMMINGS LETTER:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/flynn-business-associate-hoped-to-get-sessions-to-support-russia-related-nuclear-project/

Cummings letter indicates that even when Flynn was about to enter a government position—and was no longer officially working for Copson—he remained keen on making this deal happen. The Washington Post recently reported that “Flynn continued to support the idea of the nuclear project during the presidential transition. He encouraged Tom Barrack, one of Trump’s closest friends, to pursue a related plan.”

The whistleblower cited by Cummings maintains that on Inauguration Day, Copson told him, “Mike [Flynn] has been putting everything in place for us. I am going to celebrate today…This is going to make a lot of very wealthy people.” Copson, the whistleblower recalled, also complained that Obama had “fucked everything up in my nuclear deal with the [Russian] sanctions.” Copson, in the whistleblower’s account, explained that the the United States would have to provide military support to “defend these installations” and that doing so would provide the US government a pretext for placing US troops in these countries.

According to the Cummings letter, Copson was working hard to influence the US government so this Russia-related project could proceed. Flynn’s role in all this obviously warrants investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional committees. But any probe of this matter should cast a wider net to determine whom else Copson recruited to influence the US government and grease the way for his scheme to work with Russia to nuclearize the Middle East.