Thread by @ScottMStedman

The tape acquired by @AlbertoNardelli between Salvini's deputies and Russian officials discussing Russia funding Salvini's political party is a watershed moment in understanding how the Kremlin covertly operates.

The scheme is utterly fascinating and terrifying. Here's how it would work:

Rosneft (or a similar Russian oil company) sells $1.5 billion in oil to an Italian oil company using intermediary companies. The transactions, done over the course of a year, would be discounted...

The discounts, totaling $65 million, would then be fed into Salvini's political party via the secret Russian and Italian intermediary companies.

There's evidence that Russia pulled a similar scheme with Le Pen in France (she got millions in loans from Russian banks). Her intermediary was Konstantin Rykov who also claimed to be apart of a Trump-Russia scheme.

The only evidence we have that Russia did this with Trump is the Steele dossier. I imagine Mueller would have run all of this down, though, so it's unlikely that such a scheme happened. HOWEVER, Mueller said he was unable to figure out what Carter Page did in Moscow.

Mueller: "The office was unable to obtain additional evidence or testimony about who Page may have met or communicated with in Moscow; thus, Page's activities in Russia — as described in his emails with the Campaign — were not fully explained."

Taken as a whole, the secret tape revealed today sheds light on how the Kremlin operates. It is indeed trying to fund far-right politicians across the globe. Their rate of success is, as of now, undetermined.