Thread by @SethAbramson

(THREAD) WOW—combined with Prince's House testimony, this July '17 article raises the possibility Prince sent Trump notes on Rohrabacher's April '16 sanctions meetings in Moscow just before Trump scheduled his Mayflower speech offering Putin a "good deal." thedailybeast.com/gop-lawmaker-g…

1/ Dana Rohrabacher is commonly supposed to be a Kremlin intermediary. He has a Kremlin code name; supports every Kremlin utterance on sanctions and much else; and was discussed on tape by the current and *also* the (likely) next leading House Republican as being "paid" by Putin.

2/ A few weeks before Trump's April 27th, 2016 Mayflower speech—a speech scheduled by Manafort the moment he seized power of the Trump campaign around April 19th—Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak asked Dana Rohrabacher to meet with one of Putin's "closest confidants" in Moscow.

3/ Rohrabacher agreed, and along with staffer Paul Behrends met in Moscow with Putin's friend Vladimir Yakunin and with Natalia Veselnitskaya (yes, the one from the June '16 Trump Tower meeting with Trump Jr.). Rohrabacher now says he can't remember anything about these meetings.

4/ Rohrabacher and Behrends talks sanctions with Putin's agents Yakunin and Veselnitskaya across more than one meeting (again, meetings set up by Sergey Kislyak). At around the same time Jared Kushner calls Kislyak (per Reuters). Kushner says... he can't remember that phone call.

5/ Kushner was, with Manafort, the *architect* of the Mayflower event—specifically the VIP cocktail hour before Trump's pro-Russia speech, at which Trump met with Kislyak along with other aides like Jeff Sessions (who'd later perjure himself before Congress about that meeting).

6/ So at the *same time* Ambassador Kislyak has arranged to have Rohrabacher/Behrends engage in sanctions talks in Moscow, he's coordinating breaching diplomatic protocol with Kushner/Manafort to attend a VIP event before Trump's first big foreign policy speech at the Mayflower.

7/ In Moscow, Putin's agents tell Rohrabacher/Behrends *exactly* what Putin wants in terms of US sanctions policy. The question is, how do Rohrabacher/Behrends get that information to Trump, Manafort and Kushner so they can craft Trump's speech around it? *We now have an answer*.

8/ The article I linked to atop this thread confirms that Rohrabacher/Behrends are both—*both*—*very good friends* with Erik Prince, and they have been for years. But wait! you say. Erik Prince wasn't *at* the Mayflower event—how do we know he got involved? Answer: he told us so.

9/ During his House testimony, Prince—in the midst of perjuring himself on nearly every Russia question he was asked—let slip that, though he wasn't part of the Trump campaign, he regularly sent analyses of foreign policy issues to the campaign and was *confident* they were read.

10/ The Intercept did a probe into Prince's campaign role, and concluded that he was a "shadow adviser" to Trump during the campaign. We know Trump rewarded Prince with an invitation to his VIP-only election-night results-watching party and made Prince's sister a Cabinet member.

11/ So Kislyak is charged with changing US sanctions policy, and the Russian position on this is communicated to *two good friends* of a Trump adviser just *days* before Trump schedules his first foreign policy speech, which speech—set up by Kushner and Manafort—Kislyak attends.

12/ Are there *any* circumstances under which Kislyak, Manafort, and Prince wouldn't have made certain Trump accessed what Putin's agents told Rohrabacher before Trump gave his first foreign policy speech? A speech that—with Kislyak in the front row—promised Putin a "good deal"?

13/ But wait—there's more. We know, from POLITICO, that Trump's Mayflower speech was (a) co-written by Gazprom lobbyist and Alfa Bank adviser Richard Burt, and (b) edited by none other than *George Papadopolous*—who'd revealed himself as a Kremlin intermediary four weeks earlier.

14/ At the time Papadopoulos was editing the speech, he was *in the midst of negotiations with the Kremlin*. And we know that, the day of the Mayflower speech, he emailed his contact saying the Kremlin should pay attention to what Trump said. So we see a collusion *network* here.

15/
* Kislyak sends Rohrabacher/Behrends to Moscow sanctions talks.
* Rohrabacher/Behrends send Moscow's demands to Prince.
* Prince sends them to Team Trump; they go to Papadopoulos.
* Trump delivers his speech to Kislyak.
* Kislyak reports to Putin, Papadopoulos to his contact.

16/ The net result is that by the time Trump says publicly at the Mayflower Hotel that he believes he can strike a "good deal" with Russia on sanctions he knows, back-channel, exactly what Moscow wants. His back-channel is simple: Rohrabacher—or Behrends—to Prince to him. Simple.

17/ Because that back-channel isn't sustainable (Rohrabacher was on a Congressional delegation to Moscow when he met with Yakunin and Veselnitskaya) the Kremlin has to keep working on creating new ones after April of 2016. It also explains some of Trump Jr.'s frustration in June.

18/ In June, as The Daily Beast notes, the same person Rohrabacher met with in April—Veselnitskaya—shows up at Trump Tower with the same sanctions demands it's likely Trump's family already *knew* about back in April. So Trump Jr. *isn't* angry because he doesn't understand her.

19/ Rather, Don Jr. is angry because Trump already heard what Putin wanted and offered a "good deal"—so the Trump family is now expecting the quid pro quo to switch back the other way again, with the Kremlin providing the Trump campaign with value. And it does: DCLeaks goes live.

20/ And a matter of *days* later, the #3 Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives is caught on tape saying—quote-unquote "seriously"—to Paul Ryan that Putin pays two people: Dana Rohrabacher and Donald Trump. And many months later, Prince perjures himself to Congress. /end

PS/ The breaking news I saw after I completed this thread (that Trump knew about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting in advance) dovetails with everything this thread says.