Just chiming in here on this. The heart of this thread sort of gets the sanctions convo wrong. It is a confusing one. But this is a really important thing to get right in the context of the Russia investigation....
I think there is too much conflating of the "sanctions easing" convo with the Rusal delisting. Deripaska was not sanctioned until April 2018. And Rusal and EN+ were also not in the convo until then.
In Jan. 2017, it was still broadly legal for U.S. companies and sanctioned Russian entities (those under sectoral sanctions) to do biz with one another. The fear for Russia was the possibility of harsher sanctions as a result of the meddling or what may come out of the invest.
And there were for sure behind the scenes convos about the possibility of easing sanctions or preventing further sanctions....but the Rusal issue was sort of a separate conversation.
Rusal delisting was in the works this summer, but it took time for Deripaska to divest his interests, according to our sourcing.
Prince has been involved in the mineral game for a long time. Frontier Services Group is all over the place in the mining sector. Just because he works in mining doesn't mean he is working as a go between for Deripaska/Manafort. I think that is a big jump and dangerous
Here's what we do know about what was discussed in the Seychelles: thedailybeast.com/revealed-what-…
