A second Christopher Steele memo says that Russia blocked Romney from becoming Trump’s Secretary of State because they wanted someone who would lift the sanctions.
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Jane Mayer of The New Yorker reported:
One subject that Steele is believed to have discussed with Mueller’s investigators is a memo that he wrote in late November, 2016, after his contract with Fusion had ended. This memo, which did not surface publicly with the others, is shorter than the rest, and is based on one source, described as “a senior Russian official.†The official said that he was merely relaying talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but what he’d heard was astonishing: people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trump’s initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney. (During Romney’s run for the White House in 2012, he was notably hawkish on Russia, calling it the single greatest threat to the U.S.) The memo said that the Kremlin, through unspecified channels, had asked Trump to appoint someone who would be prepared to lift Ukraine-related sanctions, and who would coöperate on security issues of interest to Russia, such as the conflict in Syria. If what the source heard was true, then a foreign power was exercising pivotal influence over U.S. foreign policy—and an incoming President.
If Russia blocked Romney, Trump is a Putin puppet
If the Russians have this degree of influence over Trump, then it confirms what the circumstantial evidence shows. Putin is running Trump, and the Kremlin is firmly in control of much of US foreign policy. There is a reason why Trump still has not implemented the new sanctions against Russia that Congress passed. It is the same reason why Trump hasn’t lifted a finger Russian election interference, or why the president has refused to say a single bad word about Putin.
The Russians wouldn’t want Romney to be Secretary of State. Mitt Romney views Putin as a threat to the US, and he would have taken the job at State seriously and not gutted the department as Rex Tillerson has done.
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The second Steele memo comes from a single source, so it has not been verified, but if this chatter in the Kremlin is true, the Russian infiltration of the US government is an act of war that needs to be dealt with immediately.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
