Thread by @SethAbramson

BREAKING: Six days after Trump advisor Erik Prince met Kirill Dmitriev—head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund—in a meeting Prince said had nothing to do with Trump, Dmitriev met with Trump advisor Anthony Scaramucci. So was that unrelated to Trump too? bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

2/ This news is "BREAKING" not because the Bloomberg story is new—it's not—but because CNN retracting *its* take on the Dmitriev-Scaramucci meeting has caused media to be loath to mention the meeting ever occurred. But as WP notes, Scaramucci says it did: washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/styl…

3/ This matters because the thesis of the Mueller probe, my feed, the Steele dossier, and Democratic questioning in the House and Senate is that Trump traded U.S. sanctions policy for Russian election assistance—and planned to unilaterally dump sanctions on Russia once in office.

4/ Trump's secret plan to unilaterally end Russian sanctions has been widely reported—and caused horror in DC. But Prince's Seychelles meeting and Scaramucci's Davos meeting with a man affected by sanctions being so close in time has barely been discussed. newsweek.com/trump-white-ho…

5/ CNN retracted a story on the Scaramucci-Dmitriev meeting for reasons no one knows. Even The Washington Post story linked to in this thread—which claimed it would tell the full story behind the retraction—never actually explained what was *wrong* or *false* about the CNN story.

6/ One thing's for sure: the thesis that Trump traded sanctions policy for election assistance would be bolstered by any evidence that Trump aides were talking sanctions with Russia in December and January. Why? This would suggest that Kremlin agents had come to collect on Trump.

7/ APPARENT DECEMBER '16/ JANUARY '17 TRUMP-RUSSIA SANCTIONS CONTACTS*

1. Kushner-Flynn-Kislyak, December
2. Kushner-Gorka, December
3. Flynn-Kislyak, December
4. Prince-Dmitriev, January
5. Scaramucci-Dmitriev, January
6. Cohen-Sater-Artemenko, January

*The ones we know about.

8/ Prince—a proven liar, propagandist, and villain who spread Russia "deza" (disinfo) throughout the 2016 campaign—is claiming his meetup with Dmitriev was a random, 20-minute beer-klatch that had nothing to do with Trump. He (and Scaramucci) hope no one will look at the context.

9/ But in addition to the 6 Trump-Russia sanctions contacts I mentioned, there was also Carter Page's admission—made *in Moscow* in December of 2016—that he was meeting with Rosneft officials (and, he told Congress, Kremlin officials). The Kremlin tried to dub out his confession.

10/ So here's the Kremlin's TV station—RT—trying somewhat pathetically to dub out Carter Page's admission that he went to Moscow in December 2016 to discuss the "Ukraine crisis" with Rosneft officials (and, he later told Congress, Kremlin officials, too):

11/ The Trump campaign would say this doesn't count as a seventh Trump-Russia contact on sanctions in a 6-week period, but I beg to differ—as Trump has repeatedly continued contacting and even relying upon advisors after he's "fired" them (see Manafort or Flynn). So why not Page?

12/ This is the part where I mention that Carter Page's New York City office, which is adjacent to Trump Tower, is also in a building with a walkway that leads directly to Trump Tower—a walkway not monitored by the media, who in December were camped out in the Trump Tower lobby.

13/ Both Sergey Kislyak and Sergey Gorkov—apologies for writing "Gorka" before, but it's hard to get that strange little man out of my brain—were hustled into Trump Tower in December through a back door, so the media wouldn't see them. Carter Page had even easier access to Trump.

14/ So given Trump's penchant for keeping in touch with "fired" advisors, his team's December 2016 penchant for sneaking Russians into Trump Tower to avoid the press, and Page's ready access to Trump Tower, claims he wasn't in touch with Trump in December 2016 are merely a guess.

15/ We *also* must note an *eighth* Trump-Russia-related meeting in this December-January timeframe: George Papadopoulos' trip to Athens in December 2016 to meet close Putin ally Panos Kammenos.

Papadopoulos earlier met with Kammenos the same week Putin did in late May of 2016.

16/ In December 2016, Papadopoulos was not only still on Trump's NatSec team, he was also—as I reported earlier this month—telling Greek officials that Trump had given him a "blank check" to choose any job in the administration he wanted. So did he talk sanctions with the Greeks?

17/ Well, when he traveled to Athens "incognito"—as the Greek press reported—in late May, he was meeting with Kammenos at the same time Kammenos was meeting with Putin. And what was Putin in Athens to discuss with Kammenos and top Greek officials? You guessed it: U.S. sanctions.

18/ Putin arrived in Athens May 27, 2016 for what Russian media called a sanctions "charm offensive"—Athens being a good spot for it, as the Greek government has been lukewarm on U.S. sanctions on Russia, for their own reasons. Did the offensive work? Yes. bbc.com/news/world-eur…

19/ So what we have now is, in the period from December 3rd, 2016 through January 17th, 2017—a period of just 45 days—an astounding *eight* live or cell-phone meetings, *just that we know of*, that we have every reason to think involved Trump aides, Russian agents, and sanctions.

20/ *This* is the context in which a proven liar like Prince says he met with a Russian deeply affected by sanctions but didn't discuss Trump; *this* is the context in which CNN retracting a story for unknown reasons, and it then being ignored by the rest of the media, *matters*.

CONCLUSION/ So a 45-day period last December/January saw the equivalent of a *secret summit on U.S.-Russia sanctions* that spanned the globe—at least 4 cities—and involved *8* Trump associates. Papadopoulos once said, "the Russians prefer to talk in neutral cities." Yes, they do.

PS/ Before you say it—yes, the White House has acknowledged Trump was still in touch with Manafort in the December/January period, and Manafort was off the grid then—because he'd been "fired"—so he could've been involved in all this too. Note I said "at least" 8 Trump associates.

PS2/ We don't know the content of the Scaramucci-Dmitriev meeting that Bloomberg reported. But we know there was every reason for sanctions to be on Dmitriev's mind; Scaramucci was then a Trump aide; and Trump-Russia sanctions chats were the order of the day in December/January.

ADDENDUM/ Here's Jared Kushner sitting next to Leon Black—a former board member for Dmitriev's Russian Direct Investment Fund—at the U.S. Open in September 2016. Is this yet *another* time the RDIF made contact with a Trump aide and *didn't* discuss sanctions? Let's ask Kushner.