Like many people, I’ve been both appalled and fascinated by the ties between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Mobsters, shady deals with shadow companies, arrested spies, dead bodies outside the Russian consulate — it’s like a LeCarre novel, only with more characters and plot twists.
Not to mention the grave threat to our democracy and the safety of the free world.
Like many, I’ve been struggling to keep up with it all. So I decided to create a Tiki Toki timeline to detail the who, what, where, and when of this tangled web, using publicly available reports. And while it is still a work in progress, it’s far enough along to share it with anyone who’s interested. Here it is:
https://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/784073/The-Trump-Russia-Connection/
The idea is to find a narrative thread one can follow, to connect the dots as much as possible, knowing that the vast majority of them are opaque and hidden. I was particularly interested in filling in the blanks prior to Trump’s announcement he was running in 2015. The chart is still pretty sparse from 2000 to 2014, and then very crowded from that point forward. (So I am looking for any other connections that can be made during this time period — please email or DM me if you have stuff to share.)
Where possible, I tried to find the specific date something happened. In some cases, I could only get as specific as the month or year. Every item is linked to a news source.
As much as possible, I’ve tried to avoid spinning off into wacko conspiracy land. But here are some general observations and a few interesting questions they raise.
The Comrades:
All of these current or former members of Team Trump have ties to Russia, some dating back to 1999: Rex Tillerson, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Carter Page, Michael Caputo, Felix Sater. Most of these ties are related to business deals between them and Putin’s oligarchs. I’m also including Assange in this, as he played a pivotal role in allowing Russia to manipulate US public opinion.
The Deals:
I really think this is almost entirely about money. Trump admires Putin because he used the power of the state to stuff his own pockets, and wants to do the same. Certainly lifting economic sanctions on Russia would benefit Exxon Mobile, Rex Tillerson’s old company. Deutsche Bank, recently found guilty of laundering $10 billion for Russian oligarchs, is also Donald Trump’s primary creditor.
Of particular interest is the December 2016 sale of nearly 20 percent of Rosneft, the state-owned oil giant, to a mystery group based in the Caymans and Singapore. This has to be the same one alluded to in the Steel Dossier, which referenced a meeting between Carter Page and Russian officials in July 2016 to talk about brokering such a deal. There are so-far tenuous threads that suggest people associated with Trump may have been involved in that deal, but nothing solid yet. (Stay tuned for further developments.)
Christopher Steele’s opposition dossier, which detailed Russia’s alleged attempts to compromise Trump, looks more and more valid every day.
The Wikileaks connection:
On two occasions, Trump advisor Roger Stone appeared to know what Wikileaks was going to publish before it did. Assange denies any contact with the Trump team (and Russia for that matter). Stone claims it was a mutual acquaintance of his and Assange’s that gave him the info. Could that mutual acquaintance also be an operative for Russia? Perhaps the source of the leaks to Assange?
The Spies:
After Trump and Flynn received intelligence briefings — part of which covered Russia’s involvement in the US elections — Putin arrested several top spies who oversaw the hacks of the DNC and Podesta and may have served as informants for US intelligence. (Another was found dead in his car outside the NYC Russian consulate on election day.) Did someone on Team Trump leak the names of informants to Putin’s FSB?
The FBI:
What role did Comey’s FBI play here? Some interesting facts to consider: Rudy Guiliani boasted about information he received from former FBI agents based in NYC re revelations about Hillary. The Pizzagate pedophile conspiracy story may have emanated from there. Felix Sater was an informant for the NYC branch of the FBI. What does all this mean? Hopefully we won’t have wait 25 years to find out.
Any contributions to this timeline are welcome. Please email me — dan at dantynan dot com.
