*president trump is seriously dangerous*

[justdrew]

If California goes, good chance Oregon, Washington and Hawaii will go too, and together. Who knows, may Alaska joins up too, just for the hell of it. Pacifica.

[JackRiddler]

Now I know I was putting Trump's chances at zero not so long ago, but I still feel safe making some predictions. This is a rhetorical part of the many-fronted war that has begun and it's not going to happen for real. What I can see is a coalition of states who, for example, pool together to jointly implement a single-payer system.

[Elvis]

If California goes, good chance Oregon, Washington and Hawaii will go too, and together. Who knows, may Alaska joins up too, just for the hell of it. Pacifica.

Never. Alaska is already its own country (in the minds of Alaskans). When they talk about "this country"—as in "this country is going to shit" etc.—they don't mean the United States, they mean Alaska.

[mentalgongfu2]

There are two kinds of people in Alaska: crazy people, and Really Crazy People. Or so I'm told. I can respect that.

[Luther Blissett]

Time to start that new Paris Commune.

assuming that'd be someplace in california

Rather than secession, I'm thinking something more along the lines of what the commune was - a sovereign rebel city controlled by the people. My money is on Philadelphia - less rich people than the other major cultural centers but still the fifth largest population, majority African American, reliably left with tiny numbers of conservative Trump supporters, the epicenter of anarcha-feminism, centuries-long history of resistance dating back to the Kensington Riots, and the fact that one of the most common adjectives used to describe it is "gritty."

Last Wednesday and Thursday nights protesting the republican retreat here was electric and way less "governable" than yesterday's airport protest was.

[82_28]

While I agree with the sentiments totally, if I was getting off a plane (hate flying BTW) the first thing I want is a smoke. If people were blocking me from doing so would make me pissed. I would have of course come back and joined everyone else. Shit, I just realized I could have just lit up a smoke and not given a fuck maybe.

[Luther Blissett]

This is really good. Highly recommended (and by virtual Jeff, too). Additional links at the source.

Trial Balloon for a Coup?
Analyzing the news of the past 24 hours

The theme of this morning’s news updates from Washington is additional clarity emerging, rather than meaningful changes in the field. But this clarity is enough to give us a sense of what we just saw happen, and why it happened the way it did.

I’ll separate what’s below into the raw news reports and analysis; you may also find these two pieces from yesterday (heavily referenced below) to be useful.

News Reports
(1) Priebus made two public statements today. One is that the ban on Muslims will no longer be applied to green card holders. Notably absent from his statement was anything about people with other types of visa (including long-term ones), or anything about the DHS’ power to unilaterally revoke green cards in bulk.
The other was that the omission of Jews from the statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day was deliberate and is not regretted.

A point of note here is that Priebus is the one making these statements, which is not normally the Chief of Staff’s job. I’ll come back to that below.
(2) Rudy Giuliani told Fox News that the intent of yesterday’s order was very much a ban on Muslims, described in those words, and he was among the people Trump asked how they could find a way to do this legally.

(3) CNN has a detailed story (heavily sourced) about the process by which this ban was created and announced. Notable in this is that the DHS’ lawyers objected to the order, specifically its exclusion of green card holders, as illegal, and also pressed for there to be a grace period so that people currently out of the country wouldn’t be stranded — and they were personally overruled by Bannon and Stephen Miller. Also notable is that career DHS staff, up to and including the head of Customs & Border Patrol, were kept entirely out of the loop until the order was signed.

(4) The Guardian is reporting (heavily sourced) that the “mass resignations” of nearly all senior staff at the State Department on Thursday were not, in fact, resignations, but a purge ordered by the White House. As the diagram below (by Emily Roslin v Praze) shows, this leaves almost nobody in the entire senior staff of the State Department at this point.

As the Guardian points out, this has an important and likely not accidental effect: it leaves the State Department entirely unstaffed during these critical first weeks, when orders like the Muslim ban (which they would normally resist) are coming down.

The article points out another point worth highlighting: “In the past, the state department has been asked to set up early foreign contacts for an incoming administration. This time however it has been bypassed, and Trump’s immediate circle of Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, son-in-law Jared Kushner and Reince Priebus are making their own calls.”

(5) On Inauguration Day, Trump apparently filed his candidacy for 2020. Beyond being unusual, this opens up the ability for him to start accepting “campaign contributions” right away. Given that a sizable fraction of the campaign funds from the previous cycle were paid directly to the Trump organization in exchange for building leases, etc., at inflated rates, you can assume that those campaign coffers are a mechanism by which US nationals can easily give cash bribes directly to Trump. Non-US nationals can, of course, continue to use Trump’s hotels and other businesses as a way to funnel money to him.

(6) Finally, I want to highlight a story that many people haven’t noticed. On Wednesday, Reuters reported (in great detail) how 19.5% of Rosneft, Russia’s state oil company, has been sold to parties unknown. This was done through a dizzying array of shell companies, so that the most that can be said with certainty now is that the money “paying” for it was originally loaned out to the shell layers by VTB (the government’s official bank), even though it’s highly unclear who, if anyone, would be paying that loan back; and the recipients have been traced as far as some Cayman Islands shell companies.

Why is this interesting? Because the much-maligned Steele Dossier (the one with the golden showers in it) included the statement that Putin had offered Trump 19% of Rosneft if he became president and removed sanctions. The reason this is so interesting is that the dossier said this in July, and the sale didn’t happen until early December. And 19.5% sounds an awful lot like “19% plus a brokerage commission.”

Conclusive? No. But it raises some very interesting questions for journalists to investigate.

What does this all mean?
I see a few key patterns here. First, the decision to first block, and then allow, green card holders was meant to create chaos and pull out opposition; they never intended to hold it for too long. It wouldn’t surprise me if the goal is to create “resistance fatigue,” to get Americans to the point where they’re more likely to say “Oh, another protest? Don’t you guys ever stop?” relatively quickly.

However, the conspicuous absence of provisions preventing them from executing any of the “next steps” I outlined yesterday, such as bulk revocation of visas (including green cards) from nationals of various countries, and then pursuing them using mechanisms being set up for Latinos, highlights that this does not mean any sort of backing down on the part of the regime.

Note also the most frightening escalation last night was that the DHS made it fairly clear that they did not feel bound to obey any court orders. CBP continued to deny all access to counsel, detain people, and deport them in direct contravention to the court’s order, citing “upper management,” and the DHS made a formal (but confusing) statement that they would continue to follow the President’s orders. (See my updates from yesterday, and the various links there, for details) Significant in today’s updates is any lack of suggestion that the courts’ authority played a role in the decision.

That is to say, the administration is testing the extent to which the DHS (and other executive agencies) can act and ignore orders from the other branches of government. This is as serious as it can possibly get: all of the arguments about whether order X or Y is unconstitutional mean nothing if elements of the government are executing them and the courts are being ignored.

Yesterday was the trial balloon for a coup d’état against the United States. It gave them useful information.

A second major theme is watching the set of people involved. There appears to be a very tight “inner circle,” containing at least Trump, Bannon, Miller, Priebus, Kushner, and possibly Flynn, which is making all of the decisions. Other departments and appointees have been deliberately hobbled, with key orders announced to them only after the fact, staff gutted, and so on. Yesterday’s reorganization of the National Security Council mirrors this: Bannon and Priebus now have permanent seats on the Principals’ Committee; the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have both been demoted to only attending meetings where they are told that their expertise is relevant; the Secretary of Energy and the US representative to the UN were kicked off the committee altogether (in defiance of the authorizing statute, incidentally).

I am reminded of Trump’s continued operation of a private personal security force, and his deep rift with the intelligence community. Last Sunday, Kellyanne Conway (likely another member of the inner circle) said that “It’s really time for [Trump] to put in his own security and intelligence community,” and this seems likely to be the case.

As per my analysis yesterday, Trump is likely to want his own intelligence service disjoint from existing ones and reporting directly to him; given the current staffing and roles of his inner circle, Bannon is the natural choice for them to report through. (Having neither a large existing staff, nor any Congressional or Constitutional restrictions on his role as most other Cabinet-level appointees do) Keith Schiller would continue to run the personal security force, which would take over an increasing fraction of the Secret Service’s job.

Especially if combined with the DHS and the FBI, which appear to have remained loyal to the President throughout the recent transition, this creates the armature of a shadow government: intelligence and police services which are not accountable through any of the normal means, answerable only to the President.

(Note, incidentally, that the DHS already has police authority within 100 miles of any border of the US; since that includes coastlines, this area includes over 60% of Americans, and eleven entire states. They also have a standing force of over 45,000 officers, and just received authorization to hire 15,000 more on Wednesday.)

The third theme is money. Trump’s decision to keep all his businesses (not bothering with any blind trusts or the like), and his fairly open diversion of campaign funds, made it fairly clear from the beginning that he was seeing this as a way to become rich in the way that only dedicated kleptocrats can, and this week’s updates definitely tally with that. Kushner looks increasingly likely to be the money-man, acting as the liaison between piles of cash and the president.

This gives us a pretty good guess as to what the exit strategy is: become tremendously, and untraceably, rich, by looting any coffers that come within reach.
Combining all of these facts, we have a fairly clear picture in play.

• Trump was, indeed, perfectly honest during the campaign; he intends to do everything he said, and more. This should not be reassuring to you.
• The regime’s main organizational goal right now is to transfer all effective power to a tight inner circle, eliminating any possible checks from either the Federal bureaucracy, Congress, or the Courts. Departments are being reorganized or purged to effect this.
• The inner circle is actively probing the means by which they can seize unchallenged power; yesterday’s moves should be read as the first part of that.
• The aims of crushing various groups — Muslims, Latinos, the black and trans communities, academics, the press — are very much primary aims of the regime, and are likely to be acted on with much greater speed than was earlier suspected. The secondary aim of personal enrichment is also very much in play, and clever people will find ways to play these two goals off each other.

If you’re looking for estimates of what this means for the future, I’ll refer you back to yesterday’s post on what “things going wrong” can look like. Fair warning: I stuffed that post with pictures of cute animals for a reason.

[kelley]

luther, it's odd you posted this above . . . i was just thinking the immigration issue is a first litmus test for how far things could be pushed. it's telling and terrifying that guiliani is describing the implementation of these actions as 'factual' and therefore legal, rather than religious.

[seemslikeadream]

trumpty dumbty is going to loose in court because he said he wanted to let more christian immigrants in


his immigration ban is illegal...it is based on RELIGION

Will Trump be Prosecuted for War Crimes?
01/29/2017 06:47 pm ET

Ambassador Muhamed Sacirbey
Former Bosnian foreign minister and ambassador to the United Nations
2017-01-29-1485732754-7662299-160909_POL_TrumpPutin.jpg.CROP.promoxlarge2.jpg

Consequences for President Donald Trump’s rhetoric differ substantively from those of Candidate Trump as such may affect his personal culpability over potential crimes under international law and now that he is Commander in Chief. Incitement may be enough to create criminal culpability. However, being in the chain of command, at the very top of it, President Trump assumes responsibility for not only setting the criteria for US military and operatives to act consistent with US and international law but also to prosecute those who in their official actions may violate, particularly if the crimes may take on the character of systematic violations. Trump has already confirmed his preference for torture after assuming the Presidency and he has expressed his intention to kill innocent family members of terror suspects while candidate. In order for any conviction to occur there would have to be a court identified willing to entertain investigation and prosecution as well as sufficient evidence of the alleged crime, unlawful killing or other “grave violations of international humanitarian law” being committed during President Trump’s tenure.

Would Any Court Entertain Potential Prosecution?

Venues such as the International Criminal Court could appear remote, for now. However, national courts including US courts could also enforce criminal and/or civil provisions of such international law, particularly to degree such have been adopted as part of such country’s laws, as they have been in large part in western democracies and even the US. Sovereign immunity may preclude prosecution specifically while in office. However, other avenues may be particularly suitable to this political leader, those that seek both civil and criminal liability in view of the fact that Donald Trump remains owner of a self-proclaimed global business empire. Judgments against such could be secured in national courts in random states but also the United States. The Presidency may not protect Donald Trump from claimants as it did not then-US Commander in Chief Bill Clinton when accused of sexual misdeeds. Finally, violations of international humanitarian law as adopted in US law may be the basis for impeachment proceedings particularly if these violate America’s national interests.

The US is not currently party to the International Criminal Court, along with a rather curious club that includes Russia, China, Pakistan, India, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia. The ICC in its codes and practice has been most influenced and dominated by western democracies, particularly America’s European allies. Some previous US Administrations though have worked to deflect potential jurisdiction in the case of US citizens, weakening America’s efforts to instill the rule of law around the globe including when US interests are directly at stake. Some current African despots have now also sought to free themselves of potential investigation and prosecution, after they engaged in behavior potentially culpable under international law. By the actions of the UN Security Council, (where the US, Russia and China hold permanent veto wielding seats), potential indictment could be extended as well as delayed to states/nationals regardless of venue or citizenship. Even sovereign immunity may not be a bar as Sudan’s sitting President was indicted by the ICC, (although there has been a more than conspicuous failure by Sudan or other neighboring states to detain the indicted.) Nonetheless, because UN Security Council measures may be needed, it is unimaginable that leaders in China or Russia or current US representatives would allow for ICC action to proceed on Trump, at least not as long Trump is in authority or a like minded and potentially similarly culpable Putin. (See: “Might Putin Face International Criminal Court by Annexing Crimea?“) Still, while neither Trump or Putin appear likely to stand as defendants before the ICC, nonetheless the development of international criminal law is ever more relevant to national law and courts as encompassed by the Rome Statute, (to which I was signatory and Vice-Chair of preparatory negotiating committee.)

An Evolving Jurisprudence that is Defining National Laws and Courts as well:

The ICC was not intended to be a court of primary jurisdiction and continues to preside as tribunal of complementary jurisdiction that would only act if national courts are unwilling or unable to intercede. The ICC though through interaction of western democracies and civil society. (also anchored mainly in the US and Europe), continues to further the standards and consensus. This includes everything from war crimes to the more recently defined “crime of aggression” to crimes against humanity, which could be prosecuted for actions taken by a country’s political leadership against its own citizens/people, as may be the case of Sudan or the Assad regime in Syria.

Reaching the Assets of the Culpable:

The more realistic investigation and prosecution to Trump may come from national courts, within western democracies or the US. Plaintiffs as well as prosecutors could seek remedy to Trump in ways generally not a realistic option before. Trump has assets all around the globe which could be part of any reward for relief. During my tenure as the Ambassador of Bosnia & Herzegovina to the UN, Foreign Minister and Agent before the International Criminal Court, we worked with independent legal counsel and advocates who sought relief on behalf of a religiously diverse group of claimants who had been sexually assaulted by the forces under the command of General Ratko Mladic and self-styled President of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic. Substantial and overwhelming evidence was presented and judgments were obtained for monetary damages, including in US Courts. However, there were no apparent assets against which such judgments could be executed. Trump, to the contrary, has projected his assets and presence as a global empire, and he has not divested since assuming office.

Body of Evidence of Intent toward Systematic Abuses?

Deterrence is an objective, even as the Trump Administration responds to challenges with even more audacious assertions of “alternative facts.” The “Mexico Wall” or “Muslim Ban” that President Trump is seeking to impose perhaps to pose challenges as to how to confront. However, they do add to the body of evidence of discrimination and possible persecution on basis of identity, religious, ethnic, sexual orientation or otherwise. History teaches that such fear mongering rhetoric more frequently leads to wars and military adventurism rather than the purported goal of isolationism. The slogans employed by Trump, as “America First” have direct roots with those pre-WW II sympathizing/acquiescing to the Nazis. If some would argue that this is disconnected from recent history or coincidental or that President Trump is unaware, (even as his father has been reported to belong to this pre-WW II “America First” society), then perhaps we should focus on his sought alliance with Vladimir Putin. While Putin may be effectively shielded from ICC prosecution, nonetheless, his Kremlin has been directly linked to violations in the invasion of Georgia and Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea. In Syria, Putin’s military has been accused by independent investigators as well as US and European officials of war crimes. (There is also credible evidence of “crimes against humanity” committed by Putin and/or his allies within Russia’s borders.)

Abdicating to Putin’s Agenda & Adopting Putin’s Crimes:

By aligning US policy in Syria publicly with that of Putin’s Russia, is there a lack of strategic as well as ethical wisdom? The often asked question is whether this is a recruiting, strategic gift to ISIS as well as abdication to Assad, Teheran and Putin. (Read: “Putin Drops the Bombs & Deals the Cards in Syria & Ukraine.) However, from a legal perspective, does this constitute an embrace of the Russian military’s previous alleged crimes? Further, is it evidence that the US plans to adopt the same tactics, violations through joint operations with Putin’s military or even by America’s soldiers acting on their own? This places US military personnel in a very compromised situation, legally, strategically and in the trust/working relationship with local allies, (who now may also be offended, upended or otherwise confused by “Muslim Bans” or Trump’s other statements including admiration for Putin).

Past rhetoric to prosecute previous US political leaders for violations of international law has largely been without consequence, as well as some would argue adequate evidence. Under the Trump Presidency this risk would appear to be substantially shifting, including for those unwittingly or otherwise acting on potential Trump directives. Trump’s own words would reveal intent as well as action, where ambiguity or silence may have been a more clever precedent. What happens if the new US Secretary of Defense General Mattis resigns, (as President Trump has proclaimed him as the check on his inclination to employ torture)? Still, the chance of Trump ending up behind bars appears remote to say the least, but impeachment may be a more likely consequence of possible violations as ever more developed international humanitarian law also becomes part of US standards. And, unlike previous US Commanders in Chief, President Trump could be hurt in an unprecedented manner, where perhaps he is most sensitive, in his personal wealth which he has sought to perpetuate and expand while in the White House.

@MuhamedSacirbey
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ambassado ... 83290.html

[Wombaticus Rex]

That is to say, the administration is testing the extent to which the DHS (and other executive agencies) can act and ignore orders from the other branches of government. This is as serious as it can possibly get: all of the arguments about whether order X or Y is unconstitutional mean nothing if elements of the government are executing them and the courts are being ignored.

Wasn't DHS specifically created to centralize this authority directly under the executive office, though?

[Luther Blissett]

I think 8bit even used the phrase "trial balloon" yesterday. For those who read deep history or deep politics, this idea is probably on many of their minds.

Unfortunately, it's also all over my facebook feed this morning.

[seemslikeadream]

^^^^^ YEP

MONDAY, JAN 30, 2017 07:05 AM CST
Trump’s Rasputin seizes the moment: A week of chaos may suit Steve Bannon’s master plan
Alt-right guru turned Trump adviser is using both the "Muslim ban" and bogus voter-fraud charges to spread disorder
http://www.salon.com/2017/01/30/trumps- ... ster-plan/

Questions multiply over Bannon’s role in Trump administration
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... 4cec5fd154

[NeonLX]

There are two kinds of people in Alaska: crazy people, and Really Crazy People. Or so I'm told. I can respect that.

Maybe that's why the place has such a strong appeal for me.

If California bolts, I'm going to "emigrate" there. I was born in LA so hopefully that puts me a leg up on other immigrants.

I'm sick to death of Wississippi. Fucking Scott Walker and Paul Ryan. This state has turned into such a colossal shit hole.

[seemslikeadream]

#StopPresidentBannon

https://twitter.com/hashtag/StopPreside ... 12&lang=en

Dr Kelly Sennholz ‏@MtnMD 19m19 minutes ago

RT @nadinevdVelde Bannon 7 yr membr of Vigilant Patriots White Supremacist anti Muslim FB group #StopPresidentBannon

Benjamin F
‏@knucklepushup
Because this racist piece of filth is now the most powerful man in the world #ReasonsToProtest #StopPresidentBannon

ELECTION 2016
Trump Has Been Sued More Than 34 Times Since He Was Elected
Where lawsuits are concerned, our new president is an overachiever.
By Kali Holloway / AlterNet January 30, 2017

Earlier this month, former "Apprentice" contestant Summer Zervos announced she would be moving forward with a lawsuit against the man who allegedly sexually assaulted her, Donald Trump. Zervos is one of more than a dozen women who say they were sexually abused or assaulted by Trump, who was inaugurated U.S. president a little over a week ago.

Trump is no stranger to lawsuits charging him with being a sexual predator, though he has been involved in cases that run the gamut—nearly 3,500 legal filings going back to the 1990s. When you have reportedly made a career out of bilking contractors out of money, harassing women, and setting up fraudulent universities and other businesses, you can expect your name to end up in a lot of court papers.

In just under three months since he won the election, Trump has been sued more than 34 times. That’s according to LawNewz, which analyzed court records to find Trump outpacing himself where lawsuits are concerned. According to the site, the tally doesn’t include “possible suits that we were unable to track down in municipal and state courts.” The pool is plenty diverse, in any case:

According to our research, among the cases, he’s been sued for defamation stemming from sexual assault claims, for violating the U.S. Constitution, and for violations of civil rights laws. Also, sprinkled in the docket are numerous frivolous lawsuits, which have little chance of going anywhere but are amusing nonetheless. Many plaintiffs tried to stop Trump from taking office, others tried to stop him from being sworn in, and one even tried to enjoin Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts from administering the oath of office on Inauguration Day. An underlying theme of the lawsuits was concern that the 2016 election was influenced by the Russian government, and claims that President Trump’s sprawling business ties could affect his leadership ability.

In wading through the heap of legal filings, LawNewz found a number of cases that deserved special citing. A woman named Sheila McCrea filed suit directly to the Supreme Court, “expressing great concern that the Russians were said to have influenced the 2016 election, and feared Trump could be vulnerable to further blackmail by the Russian government.” Another case, Frederic Shultz v. Trump, involves a Clinton supporter who claims in court papers that, “Chief Justice Roberts swearing in Trump to be President of the United States, violates...the rights of all other citizens who voted for Clinton, under the Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of equal protection of the law.”

LawNewz also points to Kelly Sennholz and Jerroll Sanders v. Trump, a dismissed suit that deserves a A for effort.

Kelly Sennholz and Jerroll Sanders, from Colorado, filed a pro se request for emergency order asking whether the “United States failed to protect the States from invasion during the 2016 election.” The 22-page complaint, complete with a table of contents, asks the court to enjoin Congress from ratifying the 2016 federal election results, since the United States “failed to protect States’ cyber territories from foreign invasion.” The lawsuit claims "there exists clear and convincing evidence that some elected officials who prevailed in the 2016 election were ‘selected’ by a foreign power rather than elected.”

Last year, USA Today pulled together all the Trump-centered court filings it could find and created an infographic that sorts the suits by type. That investigation yielded an even greater number of suits, totaling just under 4,100.

[stefano]

Saw this today, quite good. Feels overblown, but a lot of that is because the US hasn't had a constitutional problem since Nixon and not a real crisis since 1877, so it feels like 'it couldn't happen here', but of course it could.

Snippets, my bold, links in the original.

Yonatan Zunger

Trial Balloon for a Coup?
Analyzing the news of the past 24 hours

The theme of this morning’s news updates from Washington is additional clarity emerging, rather than meaningful changes in the field. But this clarity is enough to give us a sense of what we just saw happen, and why it happened the way it did.
...
(3) CNN has a detailed story (heavily sourced) about the process by which this ban was created and announced. Notable in this is that the DHS’ lawyers objected to the order, specifically its exclusion of green card holders, as illegal, and also pressed for there to be a grace period so that people currently out of the country wouldn’t be stranded — and they were personally overruled by Bannon and Stephen Miller. Also notable is that career DHS staff, up to and including the head of Customs & Border Patrol, were kept entirely out of the loop until the order was signed.

(4) The Guardian is reporting (heavily sourced) that the “mass resignations” of nearly all senior staff at the State Department on Thursday were not, in fact, resignations, but a purge ordered by the White House. As the diagram below (by Emily Roslin v Praze) shows, this leaves almost nobody in the entire senior staff of the State Department at this point.

As the Guardian points out, this has an important and likely not accidental effect: it leaves the State Department entirely unstaffed during these critical first weeks, when orders like the Muslim ban (which they would normally resist) are coming down.

(5) On Inauguration Day, Trump apparently filed his candidacy for 2020. Beyond being unusual, this opens up the ability for him to start accepting “campaign contributions” right away. Given that a sizable fraction of the campaign funds from the previous cycle were paid directly to the Trump organization in exchange for building leases, etc., at inflated rates, you can assume that those campaign coffers are a mechanism by which US nationals can easily give cash bribes directly to Trump. Non-US nationals can, of course, continue to use Trump’s hotels and other businesses as a way to funnel money to him.

(6) Finally, I want to highlight a story that many people haven’t noticed. On Wednesday, Reuters reported (in great detail) how 19.5% of Rosneft, Russia’s state oil company, has been sold to parties unknown. This was done through a dizzying array of shell companies, so that the most that can be said with certainty now is that the money “paying” for it was originally loaned out to the shell layers by VTB (the government’s official bank), even though it’s highly unclear who, if anyone, would be paying that loan back; and the recipients have been traced as far as some Cayman Islands shell companies.

Why is this interesting? Because the much-maligned Steele Dossier (the one with the golden showers in it) included the statement that Putin had offered Trump 19% of Rosneft if he became president and removed sanctions. The reason this is so interesting is that the dossier said this in July, and the sale didn’t happen until early December. And 19.5% sounds an awful lot like “19% plus a brokerage commission.”
...
That is to say, the administration is testing the extent to which the DHS (and other executive agencies) can act and ignore orders from the other branches of government. This is as serious as it can possibly get: all of the arguments about whether order X or Y is unconstitutional mean nothing if elements of the government are executing them and the courts are being ignored.

Combining all of these facts, we have a fairly clear picture in play.

Trump was, indeed, perfectly honest during the campaign; he intends to do everything he said, and more. This should not be reassuring to you.
The regime’s main organizational goal right now is to transfer all effective power to a tight inner circle, eliminating any possible checks from either the Federal bureaucracy, Congress, or the Courts. Departments are being reorganized or purged to effect this.
The inner circle is actively probing the means by which they can seize unchallenged power; yesterday’s moves should be read as the first part of that.
The aims of crushing various groups — Muslims, Latinos, the black and trans communities, academics, the press — are very much primary aims of the regime, and are likely to be acted on with much greater speed than was earlier suspected. The secondary aim of personal enrichment is also very much in play, and clever people will find ways to play these two goals off each other.

If you’re looking for estimates of what this means for the future, I’ll refer you back to yesterday’s post on what “things going wrong” can look like. Fair warning: I stuffed that post with pictures of cute animals for a reason.

As others have pointed out, those of us who typically follow Arab and African politics start speculating about the army's loyalties at this point.

The Reuters piece about the Rosneft stake sale:

Commodities | Wed Jan 25, 2017 | 12:05pm EST
How Russia sold its oil jewel: without saying who bought it

By Katya Golubkova, Dmitry Zhdannikov and Stephen Jewkes | MOSCOW/LONDON/MILAN

More than a month after Russia announced one of its biggest privatizations since the 1990s, selling a 19.5 percent stake in its giant oil company Rosneft, it still isn't possible to determine from public records the full identities of those who bought it.

The stake was sold for 10.2 billion euros to a Singapore investment vehicle that Rosneft said was a 50/50 joint venture between Qatar and the Swiss oil trading firm Glencore.
...
Unveiling the deal at a televised meeting with Rosneft's boss Igor Sechin on Dec. 7, President Vladimir Putin called it a sign of international faith in Russia, despite U.S. and EU financial sanctions on Russian firms including Rosneft.

"It is the largest privatization deal, the largest sale and acquisition in the global oil and gas sector in 2016," Putin said.

It was also one of the biggest transfers of state property into private hands since the early post-Soviet years, when allies of President Boris Yeltsin took control of state firms and became billionaires overnight.

But important facts about the deal either have not been disclosed, cannot be determined solely from public records, or appear to contradict the straightforward official account of the stake being split 50/50 by Glencore and the Qataris.

For one: Glencore contributed only 300 million euros of equity to the deal, less than 3 percent of the purchase price, which it said in a statement on Dec. 10 had bought it an "indirect equity interest" limited to just 0.54 percent of Rosneft.

In addition, public records show the ownership structure of the stake ultimately includes a Cayman Islands company whose beneficial owners cannot be traced.

And while Italian bank Intesa SanPaolo leant the Singapore vehicle 5.2 billion euros to fund the deal, and Qatar put in 2.5 billion, the sources of funding for nearly a quarter of the purchase price have not been disclosed by any of the parties.

"The main question in relation to this transaction, as ever, still sounds like this: Who is the real buyer of a 19.5 percent stake in Rosneft?" Sergey Aleksashenko, a former deputy head of Russia's central bank, wrote in a blog last week.

Glencore would not comment on the identity of the Cayman Islands firm or give a further explanation of how ownership of the 19.5 percent stake was divided.

The Qatari Investment Authority said it would not comment on the deal, beyond confirming that it has participated in it.

Rosneft declined to respond to questions posed by Reuters, including a request for comment on how ownership of the 19.5 percent stake was divided, information about the identity of the Cayman Islands buyer, or details of the source of any undisclosed sources of funds.

The Kremlin did not respond to a list of questions about the deal sent by Reuters.
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Following the trail of ownership leads to a Glencore UK subsidiary and a company that shares addresses with the Qatari Investment Authority, but also to a firm registered in the Cayman Islands, which does not require companies to record publicly who owns them.

Reuters asked Intesa whether it knew who the beneficial owners of the Cayman company were. The bank replied with a statement: "Intesa Sanpaolo does not comment on the details of its client operations. But we wish to reiterate that the financing was completed with strict adherence to the regulations applicable to embargoes. Italian authorities found nothing that would prohibit such an operation."
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Rosneft is the world's biggest listed oil company by output and, along with natural gas export monopoly Gazprom, one of two crown jewels of the Russian state.
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Glencore, one of the main buyers of Rosneft's crude, has Qatar's $335 billion sovereign wealth fund, the QIA, as its largest shareholder.
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The Rosneft board learned about the sale from Sechin himself only on Dec. 7, several hours after Sechin recorded his televised meeting with Putin announcing it, the source said.

I'm sure readers here will be familiar with Qatar's role in geopolitics in recent years. If you're unfamiliar with Glencore, check them out. CE is Tony Hayward, formerly of BP; the founder was the late Marc Rich; the big boss is Ivan Glasenberg, a South African, and they've lately been in the news (in Africa at any rate) in connection with the adventures of cowboys like Dan Gertler, Beny Steinmetz and Arkady Gaydamak.