Russian Collusion, Part 1

 

Is it possible to have intrigue in politics?

Not only is it possible, it is happening everyday….we just don’t hear about it. The intrigue is relegated to the players in the game. The game is like chess…..trying to think three moves ahead to balance the interests of governments, corporations, rich donors, and the politicians. I have attempted to piece together one of these episodes that didn’t make the cut on the MSM news floors.

 

It all started for me when I read that Andrew McCabe had a Russian contact. As the story goes, McCabe traveled to Europe to meet with this contact. McCabe also shared with his co-workers that this particular Russian was a friend. The CIA had been looking at McCabe’s friend for a possible data breach and his involvement in organized crime. The CIA was uneasy with McCabe’s involvement. Even the bureau had issues with McCabe. It seemed he injected himself into cases that were not his, but took interest in anything Russian. FBI Agents accused McCabe of interfering with Russian-linked investigations, including the Boston Marathon terror bombing and the Robert Levinson kidnapping cases, even making a formal complaint with FBI Security Division about the incidents. But that’s not the intrigue. However, McCabe’s tenure at the FBI does read like a spy novel. All agencies and divisions were looking at each other with the stink eye. I’ll get back to McCabe later but you can read about McCabe here:

What I want to relay today is in some way connected to what I recently wrote about Uranium One. One thing that stuck out in that investigation was the role of CFIUS in approving the takeover of Uranium One by Rosatom, the Russian nuclear agency. As I wrote, CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) is a 9 voting member committee that oversees corporate takeovers and is charged with being sure mergers and acquisitions do not act against US interests. What I want you to remember, as I tell the story, is what Hillary Clinton and her allies said her role was in CFIUS. Even though she was one of the 9 voting members, she said repeatedly that she never was in any meetings, never had contact with any investigators, and that this issue never came before her, personally….it never reached her desk! This acquisition by Russia of a Canadian company that owned 20% of US uranium reserves…..never rose to the level of the secretary of state’s desk. I want you to remember that…its part of the intrigue. This story won’t provide its full impact if you don’t understand the Russian oligarchic system, that I have written about many times before. The short of it is, Russia is not the United States. There is no congress, there are no courts, there is no respect for law……just rich and powerful oligarchs that control everything. Sure, Russia has courts and law, and a kind of parliament called the Federal Assembly, but make no mistake, these institutions are ineffective displays of government for the world to see and believe that Russia has a government.

 

One of these oligarchs, Oleg Deripaska, was, at one time, the richest man in Russia, estimated to have been worth $28 billion. However, he leveraged his money by buying up stakes in companies like a shopaholic at a Best Buy sale. He had interests in dozens of companies and from a very diverse number of industries. He had managed to piece together enough aluminum companies to become the largest aluminum company in the world. His company was called RUSAL. The problem with Deripaska’s strategic investments, is he had to borrow a lot of money. Over the years from his mountain top status in 2007, to today, he has been involved in countless lawsuits. This begins the intrigue. One of Deripaska’s holdings was the Russian auto maker GAZ. In 2007, Deripaska purchased a stake in Magna. Magna is a Canadian and Austrian auto parts manufacturer owned by an Austrian born, Canadian man named Frank Stronach. By late 2008, the crash had occurred, and money to finance equity had dried up. Deripaska’s bank, called his $1.4 billion loan, so Deripaska allowed his stake to go to the bank. However, he remained close to Stronach and Magna.

If you will recall, during this period GM was all but bankrupt. The US government, under Obama, created a unit called the Auto Task Force (ATF) to save the US auto industry. A unit, as it turns out, Hillary Clinton would have a lot of sway with. In early 2009, GM put its European Unit up for sale, Opel in Germany and Vauxhall in Britain. Although there were several offers, Magna from Canada appeared to be the front-runner. Magna had a division in Austria that assembled cars for Mercedes and Germany was on board since Magna would not close any of the Opel plants. What was not made public was that Deripaska was involved.

 

He owned one of Russia’s large automakers…GAZ, with plants in Russia. But Deripaska was in a tough financial position, being heavily leveraged with debt due to his purchase of a 25% stake in Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest miner of nickel and palladium. Germany and the Russian state bank Sberbank, offered loan guarantees to Magna. By September of 2009, the deal was set to be consummated. The details of the deal, which were extremely complex, had been worked out, papers were signed, and one final detail was needed….approval from the ATF. That approval was thought to be a formality as the office of the SOS had said in an e-mail that the state department and the US government were taking a hands off approach and the decision would be made by GM on a commercial basis. Clinton sent this e-mail to German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Late August of 2009:

“Our government is taking a ‘hands off’ role. Any decision will be made independently by GM, based on commercial considerations. The United States government does not play an active role nor do we have a position on any particular bid.” (e-mail to German foreign minister Steinmeier from HRC)

On September 12th, Putin gave a speech all but announcing the deal had been done, and two days later said this to a German newspaper:

“The Russian government, Angela Merkel’s government, and the [German] labor unions worked together intensively. There were close contacts. I myself met with representatives of IG Metall [German labor union] in my residence. Today’s achievement is the result of these efforts by the Russian and German governments, and the German labor unions”.

This was false. Clinton was lying to Steinmeier. Steinmeier knew it; he had to guess why. Abdedin and Clinton decided not to disclose that Clinton’s objection to the Opel sale was the Russian involvement – that of Putin’s, and of Deripaska’s. Clinton was also hostile to the economic integration of the Russian and German car industries as a threat to US car sales worldwide. At least, this was the stated reason for her refusal, but as we have seen ,in position after position she changes like the wind, when she sees dollar signs at the end of a policy stance.

But why would Hillary want to stop the sale of Opel, by GM, to a Canadian company, if it wasn’t because of Russian involvement? After all, she coined the phrase “Russian Reset”, and in 2009, it was a policy goal of the Obama administration to better relations with Russia. And why would she allow the deal to get so close before vetoing it and making Putin look like a fool? I don’t think it was any more complicated than enriching herself and her foundation, once again. Just prior to the deal being nixed, Deripaska donated $50K to the Clinton Foundation. Ha! Who did he think he was dealing with…..a car valet? I could find no other donations from Deripaska or his companies. It’s strange because right around the time the donation was made, Deripaska’s lobbyist was assuring him the deal was done. This lobbyist…the Endeavor Group, was knocking down $40K a month from Deripaska. The founder and owner, Adam Waldman claimed in a press release that his firm did not lobby. They merely represented a select group of billionaires in various activities of advisement. But in an article from Intelligence Online it was reported that Endeavor had close ties to the Clinton’s. Apparently Mr. Waldman didn’t get the memo. So we shouldn’t forget, and before we move on to find out where the real money was going to come from, let me go back to McCabe. Before McCabe was Deputy Director of the FBI, he worked organized crime cases in NY for the FBI, specializing in the Russian Mafia. This is where he purportedly met his Russian friend. Yes, that friend was Oleg Deripaska, the man just set upon by Hillary Clinton. Deripaska and McCabe met several times in Europe, starting around 2009….yes, right around the time this Opel deal was being vetoed by Hillary. How does this connect? After the deal collapsed, Deripaska gave an interview to the BBC where he said:

“They try to push me in a corner, maybe believing I would cooperate with them [with information].” He had resisted, Deripaska claimed: “There is a Russian interest I would never go through.”

So just maybe Mr. Deripaska needed to be taught a lesson? Anyway, whether that’s true or not, it is a fact that Deripaska and McCabe were meeting and talking….about what, we do not know.

But it’s at least important here to notice how McCabe advanced in his career and his wife getting some $700,000 for her failed political campaign in VA. from Hillary’s DNC and friend, Terry McAuliffe. Maybe it has to do with his relationship with Deripaska or maybe it has to do with not prosecuting Hillary when he had the chance….or keeping a lid on the Mikerin investigation…….unless he tells us, I suspect we will never know.

In my next installment, I will lay out the relationship between Hillary Clinton and Viktor Vekselberg…the real money and collusion with Russia.